


Do You Walk in the Shadow of Men

by shadesfalcon



Series: I Am Flesh and I Am Bone [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alexander Pierce Is A Dick In Every Universe, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Art Student Steve, Depression, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Med Student Bucky, Medical School, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Recovery, Self-Hatred, Sexual Content, Suicidal Thoughts, Unreliable Narrator, like super minor, mentioned self-harm, part one of two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-07-28 14:28:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 54,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7644562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadesfalcon/pseuds/shadesfalcon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first year of medical school was really hard on Bucky, and he is not ready to go back. But summer is over, and he has no choice but to scrape himself off the pavement for another round. Even though he’s tired. Even though he’s done. Even though he never wanted to go to medical school in the first place.</p><p>At least he took Clint’s advice and got a roommate for this year. Steve Rogers, an artist who is looking for some peace and quiet to focus on his senior year, is now only one wall away.</p><p>Bucky would be concerned about the fact that his roommate is unfairly hot, if he had the energy to daydream. Or get up off the couch. Or study. Or eat. Or shower.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My contribution to the [Stucky Big Bang 2016](http://thestuckylibrary.tumblr.com/post/136429151602/authors-and-artists-welcome-to-the-stucky-big).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Artwork](https://antipathari.tumblr.com/post/149639131643/sbb16) by the delightful [antipathari](https://antipathari.tumblr.com/) who really had a feel for the soul of this fic. Go check them out!

 

 

Bucky shouldn’t have carried a box all the way up here. That much was evident from the way he was panting heavily with post-three-flights-of-stairs exertion. From the way his hands were full and he couldn’t get to his phone. From the way he was staring at this apartment door without knowing if it was the right one.

He should have accepted Clint’s offer to help move. He should have texted this Steve guy while he was still down in the parking lot. He should have hired a moving company.

“Shoulda, woulda, coulda,” he said to the door in front of him, and then felt like an idiot because, hell, what if Steve had heard him through the door?

His arms were getting tired, so he slowly bent down and put the box on the floor. It was going to be a pain in the ass to pick back up – scraping his knuckles on the concrete while fighting with gravity against a cardboard cube with no handles – but he didn’t have any other recourse.

Once it was on the ground, Bucky straightened back up and dug his phone out of his pocket. He opened his conversation with Steve. Everything in there was utilitarian and sparse, but not unfriendly.

 

_Yeah, that’s the address. The gate code is 4328._

_Thanks. We’d said the 4 th, but are any times better for you?_

_Nope. I’m here all day. Arrive at your leisure._

 

So, no reason to be weirdly nervous about first impressions. They’d technically already been made through the magic of modern technology. He shot off another text as he tried to slow his breathing.

 

_I think I’m outside your door?_

 

There was a few seconds of silence after he hit send, and then the sound of approaching footsteps. Bucky shuffled backwards a few paces and watched the door anxiously. It was opened by a small blond man who barely came up past Bucky’s shoulder, and who probably weighed 110 pounds soaking wet.

Fuck Clint Barton to hell and beyond. The friend code was created for a _reason_ and it was primarily to avoid moments like this one. Because some heads up as to delicate wrists, blue eyes, and that cocksure _smirk_ would have been only fair. It would have at least let him curb his “ _oh god, he’s hot_ ” head to foot lecherous scan of this guy.

Steve – presumably this was Steve – was leaning on the doorframe with one shoulder, making his hip jut out in the opposite direction. He had one hand in his front jeans pocket and the other holding open the door at arm’s length. He shook his head once, flipping his hair out of his eyes with the motion.

“Don’t like to knock?” he asked.

“What?” Bucky asked, blinking once.

It prompted Steve to take his hand out of his front pocket and dig his phone out of his back one. He held it between his thumb and one finger, shaking it lightly in explanation.

“Oh!” Bucky exclaimed. “Sorry. Guess I’m just used to texting.”

Because that was way easier than explaining why he’d suddenly been afraid to knock on a potential stranger’s door. Technically, a few texts and one mutual friend do not an un-stranger make. Even if that mutual friend is Clint Barton.

Steve shrugged, slipping his phone back into his pocket.

“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to be rude. Just wondering. You need any help with that?”

Now he was gesturing to the box sitting on the concrete and Bucky looked down, startled. He was having a little difficulty keeping up. That was at least three non sequiturs in the last forty-five seconds. Still, Bucky caught on, and he shook his head.

“Nah, I got this one.”

“This one?” Steve asked, watching Bucky lean down to pick up the cardboard box. He’d been right. He scraped his knuckles getting his hold back on it. “You got the rest of it down there in your car?”

“Well, um, rented a U-Haul actually. Little one.”

At least Steve moved to the side to let Bucky walk in.

“Need any help with the rest of it?” Steve asked, pointing down the hallway and adding, “Your room is on the left.”

Bucky almost turned the offer down. Almost. He wasn’t sure, later, what changed his mind into acceptance – whether it was the skin-melting August heat or just the thought of awkwardly walking back and forth in front of Steve for 50 solo trips – but he paused at the beginning of the hallway.

“Yeah, actually. A hand would be great.”

Steve grinned and nodded.

“Sure thing.”

 

***

 

Bucky was regretting his decision. Holy fuck, was he regretting his decision. He was pretty sure that Steve was about to drop dead on the pavement, and it would be entirely Bucky’s fault, because he couldn’t just say “no, I’ve got it” when he was offered help from a guy who _clearly_ could not lift a one hundred and eighty pound dresser. Not that that was going to stop Steve from trying. No, hell, apparently he was going to continue to attempt to lift more than his body weight in oak until the moment he lost consciousness and Bucky could finally call an ambulance without hearing “no wait, I’ve almost got it” wheezed out of that tiny body.

Years later, Bucky would maintain that he didn’t know what would have happened if Clint hadn’t decided to drop by at that moment.

“What the fuck are you doing, Steve?” Clint shouted out the rolled-down driver’s side window. “Put that the hell down! Bucky! Stop him!”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Steve panted, a high-pitched thin noise in his breath. A familiar gasping whine. Familiar, because Bucky had heard that exact noise a hundred times, over and over and over while studying pulmonology.

“Shit,” he spat, reaching out toward Steve like he’d be any actual help. “You didn’t think mentioning you have asthma would be important as you’re helping me carry boxes up and down those stairs for, like, twenty trips?”

“I said I’m fine,” Steve snapped.

“Like hell,” Clint snapped right back, swinging his car around to park haphazardly. “Put your goddamn inhaler in your mouth right now. Don’t make me make you.”

“You are the worst,” Steve muttered low enough that only Bucky heard.

“What was that?” Clint shouted, turning off his car and stepping out.

“I said it’s up in the apartment,” Steve answered. He was leaning backwards against the car now, and his skin was not the proper color.

“Where?”

“Kitchen counter. By the door. Like always.”

“I got it,” Bucky said, and took off at a run. He cleared the steps two at a time, nearly fell on his face on the landing, and slammed into the door before he could get the handle turned. He fumbled with it for a moment, and then twisted, letting himself fall through into the apartment.

The inhaler in question was right there, in plain sight, and Bucky cursed himself for not noticing it. He’d even set his kitchen box on the counter, about ten feet from the thing. This was why he was going to be the world’s shittiest doctor. No sense of observation.

He snatched it up with one hand and bolted back out the door again. He repeated his almost-fall on the landing, and then was across the parking lot in a few heartbeats.

“Didn’t. Have. To. _Sprint_ ,” Steve panted in annoyance, but Bucky wasn’t buying it. The guy sounded awful.

“You got any other meds that you take for bigger breakthrough attacks?” Bucky asked, narrowing his eyes as Steve puffed the inhaler. Watching, to make sure he was doing it right. Steve just rolled his eyes and glared pointedly at Clint as he held his breath for a moment.

“Oh you two are going to get along great,” Clint laughed, although he was also keeping an obvious eye on Steve. “Exactly what this guy needs in his life. Someone else worrying themselves sick over him.”

Steve let out his breath angrily – it already sounded better and Bucky relaxed the tight clench of his jaw just a little – and said, “One of you is bad enough. I can’t believe you talked me into letting another one of your kind into my apartment. Freaking med students. Kill me now.”

“Oh yeah,” Clint grinned, clapping on hand onto Steve’s shoulder. “You two are gonna be great.”

 

***

 

“Sam,” Steve snapped into the phone. “You have to come back. Return for graduate school. Become a professor. Ungraduate. I don’t care how you do it, just do it. Come back and be my roommate again.”

“New guy that bad?” Sam chuckled.

“Not like you’re thinking,” Steve groaned, wrapping his free arm around himself more tightly. Regardless of the August heat, he still felt clammy from the attack a few hours ago.

“Okay, so spill,” Sam said. Steve could hear him shifting the position of the phone against his ear. Could so easily visualize what Sam was doing at that moment. What he did every time Steve had him settling in to a good story.

“Well,” Steve sighed – deep breaths, slow breaths – “I managed to have an asthma attack in front of him in the first twenty minutes.”

Sam laughed at that. Like, really laughed. It was, to say the least, one of the many reasons that they’d worked together so well as roommates. No worried questions or fluttering hands.

“Of course you did.”

“This is after I completely failed to be any help to him moving in.”

“You helped him move in?” Sam snorted. “Up three flights of stairs? Steve, I love you, but you are a moron.”

“I haven’t gotten to the worst part,” Steve said, covering his eyes with his free hand.

“Oh, god. Okay, let me have it.”

“He’s hot. So hot. Like, ‘let me climb you’ levels of hot. Like ‘I will suck your dick every day till Sunday and thank _you_ for the opportunity every time’ hot.”

Sam was laughing again, even harder, and Steve grinned along.

“No, Sam, seriously,” he continued. “I have got to find a way to sneak a picture and send it to you, because this is not fair. Not even a little bit. I gave in and decided on Clint’s classmate because med students tend to be quiet. As in _not a distraction_.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “Sounds like you’re fucked.”

“Not even if I play my cards perfectly,” Steve muttered.

“Oh you did not just say that,” Sam groaned. “Now I definitely need a picture of this guy, if you think he’s that far out of your league. Listen. Okay, how about this? Describe him to me in one word.”

“Whipcord,” Steve said, without the slightest hesitation.

“What the hell, Steve?”

“I know!” Steve groaned, putting his hand back over his face again. “I’m fucked. Just – come home and fight this guy or something.”

“I am both flattered that you think I could take on Mr. Whipcord and insulted that I apparently never got you this wound up when _I_ was your roommate.”

“That’s what you think,” Steve muttered.

“What was that!?”

“Um, bye, Sam. I gotta go!”

“Nu-huh! Steven Grant Rogers you confirm what I just think I heard you say or so help me I—”

Steve hung up the phone and shoved it back in his pocket with a grin. The self-satisfaction was short lived, though, because that horrifying first impression really had happened, and Steve was about to live with the guy for a year. He sighed heavily and bounced on his toes a few times, gearing himself up, taking deep breaths. Then he turned the handle and stepped inside into the air conditioning.

 

***

 

            Bucky was standing in the middle of the kitchen, almost certainly with a confused expression on his face. He was holding his coffee mug in one hand and shuffling back and forth on the fake wood floor, trying to guess where he was supposed to put it. He hadn’t had a problem with most of his kitchen stuff – it wasn’t like he’d brought a ton anyway – but he couldn’t seem to find any other mugs in the place. Glasses, yes. Frying pans, yes. A flour sifter still in its packaging, yes. But no mugs.

This was stupid. He should just finish going through the cabinets. He’d opened a couple – the ones he expected to maybe house mugs and glasses – but had given up quickly after becoming overwhelmed with a feeling of trespassing. Like he was looking through another life. Like getting invited over to a friend’s house and accidentally walking into their bedroom on your way back from the bathroom.

Which was, again, stupid. He was living here now. He’d signed a contract. He was entitled to this space.

He glanced up at the sound of the opening door. Steve was on his way back in from the balcony. He was still a little pale, despite the sheen of sweat on him, and Bucky kicked viciously at his doctoring instincts, trying to get them to shut the fuck up. To not make him get a cool rag. To not force him to tell Steve to sit down and drink some water.

“Hey,” he greeted. “Um, where do you keep your mugs?”

Steve laughed once, rubbing his sleeve back and forth his face, wiping off the sweat.

“Fuck, I didn’t even show you around,” he said. “I just ditched you in here to unpack. Do you need any help? Beside the mug thing, obviously. Here let me help. Did you at least get the rest of your furniture up okay?”

He hurried across the space and around the corner, bending down to open one of the lower cabinets.

“Yeah,” Bucky said, watching him. “Clint’s a beast, I swear he dragged that dresser up the stairs by himself. I was just pretending to help.”

“Good. That’s good. And I keep my mugs down here. I know it’s weird, cause people always seem to expect glasses to be up top or whatever, but um…I’m kind of a collector.”

He shifted his body a little so Bucky could see the lower cabinet in question. The entire space was filled with mugs. Stacked on top of each other, lying sideways on the shelf, along the bottom, falling back behind each other. Every different color imaginable, some in varying shapes, and almost every single one with a pithy phrase written across it.

“Holy shit,” Bucky said. “Really?”

“Gotta have a hobby,” Steve shrugged. “Besides, once my friends caught on, I became the easiest person to get a gift for ever, and my stockpile grew exponentially. So, yeah, your mug will be right at home here, but I can’t guarantee you’ll ever be able to find it specifically in this chaos.”

“I think I’ll hold on to it then,” Bucky said, drawing the plain brown mug in close to his chest. He could feel his fingertips touching on the opposite side, encircling it completely. “That doesn’t look like the kind of place from which specific mugs return, and this is the mug I leave at school for when I need it there.”

“Smart,” Steve said. “Honestly, if you put it down here you probably won’t see it again till Christmas.”

“Understood,” Bucky said, laughing. He shuffled a little, and grinned lopsidedly.

“Sorry again,” Steve rushed to say. “About just ditching you in here to figure it all out on your own.”

“Don’t worry about it. Most of my stuff is for my bedroom anyway.” He’d left almost all of his living room things at his parents’ house, in what was technically storage. It wasn’t like anyone was living in the house enough for it to get in the way, even if his mother did ever suddenly decide that four spare bedrooms wasn’t enough and she had to clear out Bucky’s old one.

“Do you need any more help putting away the rest of it all?” Steve asked.

“Nah, I’m fine. I’m pretty much settled, honestly. Just got bedroom stuff to unpack.”

“Nothing to put in the living room? You totally can, you know. Mi casa es su casa and all that. Literally, too. Just shove my shit anywhere.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Bucky smiled. _As if_. After having his own space for so long, he really doubted that he’d ever come to be comfortable in what was someone else’s. Especially one so clearly put together.

The entire space had an Atmosphere about it. There was a faded couch that looked like it had been picked up on the side of the road, deep green with lighter patches were it was rubbed raw. The not-really-wood floors were also dark, as were the mismatched lampshades and glass top coffee table frame. The curtains, however, were swirled light green and grey. The one on the right was straight, but the left one had been cut slightly off grain. As it hung, the pattern was tilted just slightly. Hardly any at all, but enough to be able to tell. Enough to draw the eye.

Handmade, Bucky realized with a start. It was obvious once he’d realized it. The curtains were hand sewn. No mass-production company would have chosen that unique fabric, and they probably wouldn’t have produced a lopsided curtain.

The eclectic look fit the room, too, because all of it – from the last-legs couch to the haphazard curtain – was accented by the artwork. A giant curling octopus in charcoal on newsprint, was taped up on the biggest wall. Real water had been dripped on it, making the paper warp and the charcoal run down the curling tentacles and wobbling bubbles.

There was a small painting in watercolor of a dilapidated barely-standing house surrounded by a pristine, flawless, picket fence. There was a photograph of a girl jumping out of a tree that made Bucky want to ask whether she’d broken a leg on landing or if she’d just flown away.

Home.

Gods, it felt like a home. Bucky had lived in his isolated apartment for almost three years and he hadn’t hung up a single piece of art. Hadn’t bought more than one set of sheets. Had hung Target curtains on a plastic tension rod that he’d shoved in between the sides of the windows.

“I’m gonna go finish settling in,” he said to Steve, and Steve nodded obligingly as Bucky escaped down the hall.

He almost made it all the way, but was brought up short by one more piece of art. He’d been too absorbed by his heavy cardboard boxes the few times he’d walked past it, but it still seemed absurd that he’d missed it.

It was of a woman, from the back. She was standing in front of a sink which was filled with soap suds and dirty dishes. Her shirt was loose enough in the back that the line of her scapula was evident, cutting down the middle of the canvas as the woman jutted out one hip to keep her balance on one foot as she reached across the counter to place a dish in an already overflowing drying rack.

Something twisted inside Bucky as he looked at it, threatening to cause pain. He wanted to reach out and touch it. Instead, he stepped back from it quickly, like it had burned him, and marched down into his room.

 

***

 

His alarm was about to go off. Any minute now. Bucky flipped over yet again, curling into a ball on his side, clenching his hands in the sheets like it would anchor him to this particular moment. As though he could encase himself in temporal space, bringing linear reality to a grinding halt. As though he could slow and halt the progression of seconds, tick, tick, tick.

Any minute now. Although he couldn’t shake the feeling that the allotted time had already passed. Had he accidentally turned his alarm off the last time he’d checked on it?

“Goddammit,” he groaned, sweeping his arm across the tangled sheets, searching for his phone. His fingers touched the smooth plastic, and he grabbed it, dragging it to his face. He squinted at the dim light, trying to blink and make out the numbers.

Another three minutes left.

He should just get up. What the hell was the point of lying here for another anxiety-laden three minutes – less than, now – when he could just get up? It wasn’t like he was going to get any more sleep, and if he did it wasn’t like the time would make any kind of physical difference.

Tick, tick, tick.

First day of classes. That meant he was either going to start out ahead or behind. The whole school year depended on the daily habits that started right now. Today.

Or, started in three minutes, at least.

Okay, but, three minutes wasn’t that long, and it had really been more like barely two when he’d checked, anyway. It had definitely been more than that since. Had he turned it off, for real this time? He had done that once and it had really fucked him over, lying there way past when he was supposed to get up.

He curled up tighter, locking his fingers together behind his head, feeling the pull on his spinal cord as he tried to bury his face in his knees.

 

***

 

“Morning!” Sharon said from right behind Steve, making him startle slightly.

“Goddammit, Sharon,” he sighed, but Sharon just laughed and leaned  her shoulder against the art supplies lockers.

“So?” she asked. “You ready?”

Steve played with a couple of answers to that particular question, but eventually went with, “For what? The first day of classes? I’m not in elementary school. I’m not nervous about my first day.”

He turned back to organizing his locker, making sure everything was in place. Life would get hectic enough as the school year progressed. No sense in complicating things by having to dig through a bunch of shit, looking for that one particular pencil.

“You’re such a liar,” Sharon scoffed. “Look at you, perfecting your setup. You’re nervous. Everyone is always nervous their first day of anything.”

She had him there, at least a little. It wasn’t like his meager attempts at organization were going to last more than a couple of days. He was just going to throw everything back into the locker until it was a slowly filtering mesh of art supplies. Hell, even at this point he was just fiddling with various plastic containers, pretending the minuscule movement were any kind of organizational attempt.

“Fine,” Steve sighed, giving up and shutting the locker. “Maybe I’m a little nervous. It’s our last year. It’s weird to think about how much is riding on right now.”

“Yeah, yeah, our future is at stake and all that. What else is new? Although, speaking of new, I hear you’ve got a roommate? Didn’t take you long to get over Sam, huh?”

“Shut up,” Steve said, clicking the padlock shut and spinning it around with a twist between his fingers. “And he’s fine.”

“ ’Fine’ like ‘okay’ or ‘fine’ like “fiiiiine’?”

How did she always know exactly where to dig? Sometimes he felt like her true talents weren’t on canvas at all, but rather in the subtle understanding of body language. She’d probably be invaluable to some shady government agency, if she gave a shit about that kind of thing.

“My god, you are relentless,” was what he said out loud.

“I’m just looking out for you,” she said, using a laugh to unsubtly cover the way she was watching him. Like some of machine, eyes narrowing and flicking back and forth as she read every subtle shift of his body.

“I don’t need you to look out for me,” Steve said.

“Wrong. Someone has to, so suck it up and spill. Is he cute?”

“…yes.”

“Excellent! Is he gay?”

“I don’t know! Fuck, Sharon, I’m not gonna make a move on my roommate. I need him to pay rent, not to bail two days into the lease.”

“Good call. Wait for a couple of weeks. Let him get really settled in, and then wake him up by swallowing his dick.”

“For the love of everything,” Steve snapped, looking around to see if anyone was listening as they settled into their spaces. The art college was hardly the conservative pitfall other parts of campus had the potential to be, but that didn’t mean he wanted everyone to get slapped with the unsolicited mental image of Steve sucking some guy’s cock.

“Okay, okay,” Sharon placated, leaning over own art desk to be better able to quietly bridge the gap between her space and Steve’s. “Seriously, though,” she continued. “How do you think it’s going to turn out? Nothing ruins a year more quickly than a really crappy roommate.”

“I mean, I haven’t seen much of him. I don’t know. I thought maybe it would be weirdly awkward this morning, since it was the first time we were both getting up for classes and stuff, with just the one bathroom, but I didn’t even see him. Like, to the point that I panicked and thought maybe he’d accidentally slept in. But no, I checked eventually and he was already gone.”

“Well, hey. You hear things about med school. Maybe it just starts super early or something.”

“I guess. I didn’t think to ask, and Clint’s never said,” Steve agreed, rubbing one finger back and forth on the surface of his desk. If he pressed down hard enough, it moved the skin of his finger back and forth. White bloodless skin on either side of his nail. Depressed.

“So ask,” Sharon ordered.

 

***

 

“Hey,” Steve said, bringing Bucky up short as he stumbled down through the hallway.

“Yeah?” Bucky asked.

“Just wanted to ask, what time do you usually get up in the morning and stuff? Not to be a creep or anything. I just wanted to know to try and coordinate our schedules or something.”

Bucky laughed softly.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” he said. “I’m usually out of here by 4am. If not, something went wrong. So hey, if you ever come out to the living room and I’m staring blankly at a wall at like, 7am or something, get my ass in gear, would ya?”

Bucky smiled in what he hoped was a jocular manner, but slowly questioned whether or not he’d achieved it as the silence stretched on.

Finally, Steve said, “You leave at 4am? Every day? Goddamn. What time do you go to bed?”

Bucky shrugged. He always forgot how it felt trying to explain this kind of thing to non-med students.

“I go to bed when I’m done studying for the day,” he said. “Aren’t you friends with Clint. Does he never talk about this shit?”

“I know for a fact that Clint Barton does not get to school at 4am. I don’t think Clint ever sees 4am unless he stayed up to see it come at him from the other side.”

Yeah, that was probably accurate. Clint was one of those med students. The ones who could show up to an 8am class at 7:55 and just stroll in and sit down. Yeah, the guy was no supergenius, but he still had Bucky beat on most test scores. Plus, anyone who felt no compulsion to get to the school early had something figured out in their lives that Bucky had yet to uncover.

“Guess not,” Bucky said. “Still, it works for me.”

The conversation felt like it was probably over, and he didn’t want to intrude in this guy’s living space any longer than he was welcome, so he should probably turn back to his room. He had another PowerPoint to get through tonight, and if he wasn’t being a lazy ass, he’d get those drug flashcards made. Picmonic only worked so much. Sometimes you just had to write shit out by hand.

“Yeah, sorry,” Steve said in a rush. “I didn’t mean to say it was weird or anything. I was just trying to figure out our mornings and stuff.”

“Yeah, shit, no. I didn’t think you were being weird. Sorry if it sounded that way.”

God, the conversation was getting worse. Bucky hadn’t though it could be worse than the stilted stranger to stranger conversation about daily schedules, but no, this was much worse.

“Yeah, okay,” Bucky said, nodding.

“Yeah,” Steve echoed back.

And Bucky had thought it was going to be a long year _before_ he’d managed to invade this guy’s space as a social moron. He doubted this was what an art student looked for in a roommate.

Steve reached up and brushed his hair out of his eyes again. The kid really should just get a haircut.

“So how was the first day of classes?” Steve continued.

Oh, god. They were continuing this. Bucky let his backpack slip off his shoulder so he could lower it to the floor. He didn’t let go of the strap, though. Ready to bail back to the enclosed safety of his room the moment Steve gave up on the enforceable social norm of roommate conversation.

“It was fine,” he answered. “Really boring. Like, only one hour of classes. All the rest of the lecture space was official stuff. Paperwork. ‘Are you qualified in CPR?’ ‘Do you have health insurance?’ ‘Do you have TB?’ Then like, all the lectures about student health services and what the school year is going to look like.”

“Ew,” Steve said, making a corresponding face. “How many hours was this?”

“Three hours of bullshit. One hour of lecture.”

“Shit. I haven’t had to deal with anything like that since freshman year of undergrad. All those ‘mandatory’ meetings about how to study and how to not die of alcohol poisoning.”

Bucky snorted. “Yeah, like that, only they give it to us every year because if we fuck up, we don’t kill ourselves, we kill someone else.”

“Well yeah, slightly bigger deal, I guess.”

“No kidding,” Bucky said, turning down the hallway, just dragging his backpack behind him, not bothering to pick it up. “Someone would actually give a shit if a _patient_ died.”

He made a face as he entered his room and shut the door. He really shouldn’t be saying stuff like that around non-med students like that. The others in his class got it – the whole ‘please kill me now’ mentality – but it tended to freak other people out.

 

***

 

It wasn’t until Steve was getting ready for bed that he thought to wonder why Bucky had gone to school at 4am if there was only a single hour of lecture to prepare for.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

The second day of classes was not so uneventful as the first had been. If Bucky was honest, he was pretty sure no one had been mentally present yesterday. Hell, half the class had skipped that last hour in favor of watching the recording online at double speed later. Bucky hadn’t ever been able to do that. He somehow managed to just never get around to watching them and tried to supplement only reading the slides instead and wow had that backfired on him when he tried it last year.

“One day,” Clint said, sliding into the seat in the mod room next to him. “One day I’m going to beat you here.”

Bucky glanced down from the slide he was reviewing to the time in the lower corner of the screen. Then he bodily turned himself to face Clint, exaggerating the movement.

“Clint,” he said, slowly. “Why the fuck are you here at 5:30 in the morning? Class isn’t for two and a half hours. Did you set your watch wrong or something?”

“Yeah, yeah, fuck you, too,” Clint laughed.

“No seriously, why are you here?”

Bucky glanced at the time again. Sure, it was always great to see Clint, but it was also really hard to study around him. And Bucky had zoned out and messed around online for way longer than he’d wanted to this morning. As such, he still had two lecture’s worth of PowerPoints to get through, and not really enough time to do it. And Clint’s presence wasn’t about to make that easier.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Clint said, in answer. “Also, what time did you get here anyway?”

“Four.”

“Still doing that then? Don’t know how you manage it.”

“Managing it is relative,” Bucky scoffed. “It’s all about balancing how much you want to sleep with how much you want to die and just walking the line between the two so you can end up doing neither.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Clint sighed. “Whatever. I’m gonna crash in the lounge for an hour. If I’m not back in time to head down to the lecture hall, come pour cold water on me or something.”

“Will do,” Bucky said, more than a little relieved that he’d have a least a few more minutes to himself before the other early-risers began to join him.

 

***

 

Steve was not incredibly talented when it came to self-control, by his own personal description. It wasn’t a systemic problem, at least. He never seemed to have a problem fulfilling academic or social responsibilities. He didn’t bail out on people to whom he’d made promises. No, it was just when it came to the whole ‘say what you think’ phenomenon. Steve had a habit of putting his foot in his mouth, and he knew it.

Case in point. That goddamn conversation with Bucky in the hallway a couple days back. The guy had clearly just wanted to escape to his own safe space, but Steve had dragged that conversation on as long as he could. Milking it for all it was worth. All one minute and forty-five seconds of it.

And now here he was, seriously considering doing it again. Worse, he was considering interrupting Bucky first. Breaking his concentration. Potentially ruining his evening studying. And all because Steve had gotten the idea in his head that he could invite the guy to come out and watch a movie in the living room. They could sit on the couch next to each other. Steve could sprawl out, with his feet touching Bucky’s leg. He could make a joke about roommate privileges to keep it from getting weird. Maybe dig his toes in under the guy’s leg, pinning his feet between Bucky and the couch.

Steve leaned over and screamed wordlessly into the couch pillow. This was so irrational. He’d barely had a couple conversations with the guy, aside from the typical ‘hey I’m looking for a roommate’ stuff. It was probably some ‘mystery guy’ factor at play. If Steve just had one real conversation with the guy then that could get struck from the balance and Steve might have a chance to calm down.

Yeah, that was why Steve was yet again seriously considering knocking on that impregnable door and asking Bucky to join him. That was it.

It had nothing to do with that fluttering feeling in his chest when Bucky had sprinted up three flights of stairs for Steve’s inhaler. Nothing to do with the careful way he’d watched to make sure Steve was using it right. Nothing to do with the way that that had been the end of it, and the guy – concerned as he’d been – hadn’t made a single attempt to be pedantic or ableist about anything.

Because that fluttering feeling that day had definitely 100% been the asthma.

Steve screamed into the pillow again, then coughed roughly at the way it tore at his throat, losing his breath more quickly than he could catch it. Stupid dramatic gesture, and yet totally worth the short gasping attempts to right his breathing again.

He decided that he’d pick out a movie first, and then decide whether or not he was going to knock on that door. Or maybe he’d just text the guy. Bucky had texted him the first time they’d been on opposite sides of a door, so it was fair to return the favor. That made sense, right?

Nothing about this bullshit made sense.

His phone buzzed and he dug it out of his pocket, more for something to do that wasn’t this than for any particular desire to see who was trying to talk to him. If it even was anyone. Chances were it was just an app that Steve hadn’t yet figure out how to keep from making any noise through his notifications.

Wrong, though. It was a pic from Sharon. A selfie, taken with Clint on one side of her and Natasha on the other. And…that was his parking lot? He squinted at the picture, sitting up to look at it – as though that would help at all. Yeah, they were definitely all standing in his parking lot.

His phone buzzed again and he pursed his lips at the message.

_Come down or we’re coming up to get you._

“Fuck you guys, too,” Steve sighed, but it was said without malice. It was probably a monumentally stupid idea to go try to talk to Bucky anyway. Saved by the text.

He had to double back for his inhaler right as he got out of the apartment and reached the top of the stairs, but he was already feeling better about his decision as he snagged it off the counter by the door. He had all year to potentially annoy Bucky and make monumentally stupid life decisions regarding his home life and non-existent shot at absolutely anything with that guy.

 

***

 

Bucky felt physically sick. That mind-numbing nausea that came with sitting still for too long in a small space. He was sitting cross-legged on his bed – stupid, studies show studying where you sleep decreases sleep effectiveness – and trying to get through the last PowerPoint of the day. Not that that would be the end.

Clint was always talking about how he went through all the PowerPoints three times. Once with the lecture and then twice afterward. Bucky didn’t understand how the hell he had the time to do that.

Thirty-seven more slides to get through. Just thirty-seven. Less than one lecture’s worth. Just a little more than twice fifteen. Ten three times, and then a couple more.

Goddammit, if he could focus on his schoolwork as much as he could focus on how many slides he had left, medical school would be a breeze.

The room was too warm. That was in part because Bucky always kept the door shut, but it didn’t help that Steve kept the thermostat set pretty high, and the triple digit degree heat out there was not helping that. Would it really kill the guy to crank it down a couple degrees?

That was disingenuous. This was Steve’s apartment. Bucky was just living here, and it was awfully nice of the guy to let him do that. Heaven knows what would be happening if Bucky had spent even one more year in that isolated little apartment on his own. Being here was good. Having someone just down the hall made it harder to follow through on darker thoughts when they decided to play override on Bucky’s otherwise sane cognitive functions.

Not that that was helping him get through these last few slides. Maybe he should take a break. Academics were always talking about that fifty minutes on, ten minutes off study method. Maybe he should just take a few minutes.

Except. It was getting closer and closer to 10pm and if Bucky didn’t crash by then, he’d get less than 7 hours of sleep. Not that it didn’t tend to happen often enough, but week one of classes was a little early to start playing the ‘constantly catching up on sleep’ game. He knew what exhaustion did to the brain. He’d just studied it yesterday.

But there were just thirty-seven more fucking slides.

He’d remember that number for the rest of his life. Thirty-seven.

Maybe he should paint it on his ceiling.

He startled at the sudden sound from outside in the living room. For all he thought about Steve and that just-barely-too-long hair that needed someone to constantly brush it out of his eyes, he sometimes forgot that the guy actually existed out there. That there was a real person somewhere on the other side of that door, until suddenly he caught the sound of a latch late at night or the dishwasher turned on or something hit the floor with a loud thud and an accompanying curse that Steve probably thought was muted.

Bucky tried to shake off the sudden distraction and get back to work, but the noise suddenly happened again. Followed by a fit of coughing.

Had the guy been screaming? And, fuck, did that cough sound bad.

Bucky was at the door before he really registered he was getting up. He wasn’t about to just burst through it or anything, but he was definitely nearby in case his ears picked up anything concerning enough to register as needing medical intervention.

His sweatpants were sticking to his ass. The thin layer of sweat from sitting still in this heat had stuck his pants to him accompanied by that particular feeling of damp discomfort. He had to pull at the pant legs to try and get any kind of normal hang on them.

At least the coughing had stopped. It had probably just been because of the screaming.

Why had the guy been screaming, anyway?

He went back to sit on the bed again, only to raise his head in more confusion when he heard the door open and close. Steve, assumedly, had left the apartment, at 9:50pm.

Maybe he was going back to campus. Even though they’d only been roommates a week, Bucky hadn’t needed any longer than that to figure out that Steve was a late-to-bed late-to-rise kind of a person. The art college lent itself to that particular lifestyle. All-nighters at the studio were apparently common, although Steve had mentioned occasional catnaps under desks or up on weird architectural platforms around the rooms. The description, oddly, had reminded Bucky of medical school, although set in the spirit of comradery rather than the spirit of stress and resentment.

The front door popped back open again, and then closed again three seconds later.

_Inhaler_ , Bucky realized. Steve had almost left his inhaler sitting on the counter again. Guy needed to keep that thing with his wallet, for the love of everything. To just get used to keeping it in his pocket. Stupid boy was going to die of a disease that modern medicine rarely lost a battle to anymore, just because he couldn’t be bothered to grab a piece of plastic on the way out the door.

Maybe Bucky could duct tape it to his wrist.

Talk about a mental tangent. Steve was certainly not Bucky’s to be duct taping anything to. He settled back onto his bed, and decided it really was time to take a break. He needed to let his mind cool down, if it was trying to attempt proprietary actions on his roommate.

He messed around on Instagram for a while, then browsed through a few other social media sites. He didn’t really communicate with many people on there anymore. They tended to be passive aggressive and unprofitable conversations. Plus if he saw one more anti-vax post, he was going to drop out of med school and become a mass murderer. For the good of the children.

He managed to waste away a little over an hour like that, surface-surfing most media, before coming back to Instagram. Steve and he had added each other when they’d first started communicating about being roommates, and Bucky was suddenly face to face with a couple of pictures of Steve at a bar with…Clint. And a couple young women that Bucky didn’t know.

This was current. Steve was right now out getting drinks with Bucky’s friend from med school.

He should definitely not dig out his phone and see if either Steve or Clint had texted him about this.

Should definitely not.

Steve would have stopped by and knocked or something, if he had been invited.

Yet, as long as Bucky did not look at his phone, there was a potential invitation. A missed message. An unanswered question. An overlooked flashing light. There could be a whole string of them, trying to get his attention, asking why he wasn’t joining them, come on down, we’re tipsy and high on life.

Schrodinger’s social acceptance.

Bucky flipped his phone over and slid to unlock.

One snapchat notification.

It was Clint’s. A panoramic video of the four of them, Steve laughing so hard he looked like he was choking. The audio was mostly unintelligible, though Bucky did catch Clint’s name.

No other messages.

“Okay,” he said out loud.

Because what kind of childish bullshit was it throw a fit about not being invited to an impromptu social event? This wasn’t elementary school. Being overlooked was not a purposeful snub. He was an adult, and a busy one at that. He was studying (he wasn’t studying, Instagram was still open and the lecture he’d been trying to re-listen to had been paused so long it had disconnected, “please refresh”) so Steve and Clint had obviously been trying to respect that, and he was very grateful.

Steve had literally walked out of the room next to him and left to hang out with another med student.

So he knew that Bucky couldn’t be too busy because Clint wasn’t too busy, and _shit_ this was bullshit. Unproductive.

He shut his computer with more force than was strictly necessary, stacked all his materials on top of each other, and marched out of his room. It was much cooler out in the hallway, washing him with relief and making a solid effort to erase that impending sense of nausea that had been building and building all day.

He didn’t look at the painting of the woman as he passed it.

He re-settled himself on the couch the same way he’d been on his bed, thought about it for a moment – and then stood to readjust the thermostat to even colder. Then, satisfied, he returned to his studies.

Thirty-seven slides to go.

Bucky burst into tears, managing a few gasping sudden breaths before screaming in angry frustration at his computer. It hurt his throat, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything but the way his hands were clenching and unclenching as he half-rocked half-shook, sobbing in the quiet of the empty apartment.

_Crying releases a hormone that triggers a combined endocrine and nervous system reaction in the body, ridding it of stress and anxiety and triggering a feeling of calm elation._

Please, please, please.

 

***

 

“Wait, so you still haven’t really talked to the guy?” Sharon questioned again. “What happened to my extremely helpful suggestion to swallow his dick?”

“I am not going to sexually assault the guy. Did you even look at that pic I sent you? He could beat the shit out of me with one hand and half his attention. Not that I’d assault him if he couldn’t. I’m just saying.”

Steve had definitely had a couple too many. He wasn’t at the public intoxication level, but he was well past the verbal filter stage. Not that he had a very effective one to start out with. It didn’t help that everyone at the table seemed intent on exploiting the situation.

“Look,” Clint laughed. “Normally I’d be with you Steve, but you gotta keep in mind that Bucky and I are friends. I mean, as close as it’s possible to get with the guy. Trust me. If you don’t make the first move, it’s never happening.”

“No, how are we still stuck on this?” Steve insisted, slapping the table weakly in an attempt to accentuate his point. “I do not have a chance with this guy. Help me figure out how to _ignore_ him. Not chat him up.”

“Are you even listening to me?” Clint laughed. “The guy will take what he can get. I don’t care if he looks like he’s made out of whipcord or not.”

“How the fuck did you hear about that?” Steve gaped. “I told that to Sam in _confidence_. You’re all out to get me. I need better friends.”

Natasha, who had been quiet for most of the conversation, leaned forward to place her elbows on the table and look Clint in the eye.

“I want to talk more about that,” she said, and Steve thought it was unfair that she could somehow manage to drink at least three highly alcoholic beverages and still manage to give off an air of unaffected sobriety. Steve’s 90lb ass had had three beers and was already well past the legal driving limit.

“Talk about what?” Clint asked, leaning forward to match her position with a grin.

“Talk about what you just said about this Bucky guy. If he’s apparently made of whipcord—“

“Fuck you,” from Steve.

“—then why can’t he get some?”

“Okay wait,” Sharon interjected. “Do we even know if this guy is the gay or bi or anything that would be interested in Steve?”

“No one is interested in Steve,” Steve said with an exaggerated sigh. He should get another beer.

“Awww,” Sharon laughed, sympathetically petting Steve's head.

“I’m pretty sure he’s bi,” Clint shrugged. “I remember him making a comment during our Repro class. Or maybe after one of our standardized patients. Something like that. I can ask him, if you want to know for sure.”

“Do not!” Steve half-shouted.

“Focus,” Natasha snapped, clicking her fingers in front of Clint’s face, successfully bringing his attention back to her and simultaneously resurrecting that same grin on his face.

“On what?” he asked her. “What did you ask, again?”

“Why do you have such a low opinion about his social skills and dating potential?”

Clint shrugged. “He never does anything. Like, I’m not kidding about that. He doesn’t talk to the rest of us. He doesn’t hang out after exams or come to the group studies. He gets to school super early and then bails out right after classes are over. Sometimes he’ll grab lunch with us if we have afternoon classes, but I get the impression it makes him really uncomfortable.”

“Sounds like he’ll make a great doctor,” Natasha said dryly. “Got the bedside manner nailed.”

“No, actually,” Clint said, taking another gulp of his beer. “He’s great with patients. We don’t see much of them right now in second year, but every time we do, he’s perfect with them. I think he just doesn’t like his peers very much.”

“Except you,” Sharon said, pointing at him.

“Usually. Sometimes I think he doesn’t even like me.”

“So he doesn’t hang out with you guys very much,” Steve said. His mind was trying to filter through all the different conversations weaving and winding around him, but he’d managed to stick on that one.

“Not really,” Clint said.

“Do you ask him?” Steve pressed.

“Ask him what?” Clint said. He and Natasha were staring at each other, and Steve very much doubted his question was getting much of Clint’s attention, so he slapped the table hard. Harder than he had a moment ago for emphasis. It did manage to get the attention he wanted, but it also got Sharon to raise a knowing eyebrow at him. Fuck her ability to read even his drunk body language and already figure out he was pissed.

“Do you ask him to hang out?” Steve clarified, now that Clint was looking at him.

“Sure, yeah,” Clint shrugged. “Sometimes. When there’s an opportunity. I honestly don’t see him that much.”

“But you’re his friend.”

“Yeah?”

“Did you ask him to join us tonight?”

Silence. Clint quirked one corner of his mouth in sudden discomfort, but didn’t say anything.

“You didn’t, did you?” Steve said. The bubbling good mood he’d been floating on vanished like candle smoke, and his lips twisted in anger. He’d never had much of a filter on his thoughts.

“He’s always studying,” Clint defended. “And he gets really pissy with people who interrupt him. I didn’t want to distract him.”

“He lives in my goddamn apartment!” Steve snapped, ignoring Sharon’s placating hand on his shoulder. “It would have taken two seconds for me to stick my head in and let him choose!”

“Don’t give me shit for this,” Clint snapped. Natasha made a negating noise, and he glanced at her quickly, paused, and took a deep calming breath. “Look, Steve, I know the guy more than you do. I’ve been in the same mod as him for over a year. I’ve seen him in high stress and low stress. In panic and calm. In success and failure. Everyone in that group has seen each other’s weaknesses laid out raw. You don’t get to judge me for deciding it’s better not to invite the guy along to get drinks on a _school_ _night_.”

Steve clenched his jaw, but didn’t say anything else, staring down at the table, rubbing the condensation rings with his fingers.

“We okay?” Clint ask quietly, after a long pause.

“Yeah,” Steve said. “But, like, gives me a heads up next time. I’ll ask him if you think he’ll get mad at you for doing it. Deal?”

“I can work with that,” Clint said. “Deal. Sorry I didn’t think about what it’d be like for you, living with him and all.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve said, waving his hand in the air to dismiss the conversation. “Let’s cut it out with the mood killing, all right? Either get me another beer or at least tell a really funny story. Natasha! Tell us something funny that happened to you this week.”

“Everything that’s coming to mind involves someone dying,” she said wryly. “I don’t think you’d all find it as funny as I did.”

“Try me,” Sharon smirked.

“Is she joking?” Steve asked Clint, pointing openly at Natasha.

Clint just shrugged and said, “You know, I honestly don’t know these days.”

 

***

 

The step on the stairs outside woke him. The staircase was right next to the entrance to Steve’s apartment, and the walls were shitty enough quality that Bucky could hear people coming up when he was in the living room. It wasn’t usually a problem, considering how rarely he was in the living room in the first place, but it did mean that his eyes flew open at the sudden sound of someone on the step.

It was Steve. Bucky knew it without the slightest second thought, and he didn’t bother to let himself wonder why he knew the sound of Steve by his weight on the stair. Instead, he panicked. He almost shoved his laptop off the couch in his mad dash to get everything gathered up, and he did trip over one of his own ankles and sprawl onto the floor loudly enough to make potential enemies of every downstairs neighbor they had, but he also managed to get everything scooped up quickly enough to shut the door to his room just as Steve managed to properly work his key and spill drunkenly into the apartment.

It was irrational. Bucky knew it the moment he was panting on the safe side of his door. Steve wouldn’t give a shit that Bucky had been studying in the living room. It was fucking _normal_ to study in the living room, especially since he’d been the only person in the apartment.

Of course Steve wouldn’t have been able to tell that Bucky had cried himself to sleep on the couch, in front of his unfinished study materials. Sure, Bucky could still feel the remains of that particular session – the swollen eyelid, puffy headache, snot-induced nausea that came with such a break down – but Steve wouldn’t have been able to see it.

Probably.

 

***

 

Steve was sober enough to be coherent, but tipsy enough that he decided to rest for a moment with his hand on the back of the couch. He was sober enough to notice the white cards between the couch cushions, and drunk enough to climb over the back of the couch to get at them. He was sober enough to recognize they were Bucky’s notecards, and drunk enough to become irrationally angry about them.

So the guy did leave his room. Just not when Steve might get anywhere near him.

He was going to shove the cards under the door to Bucky’s room on the way to his own, but he mostly-forgot and then collapsed on his own bed.

 

***

 

Brock was not an early riser. He wasn’t even a class-goer. He was part of the student body that watched the lectures online, and only showed up for the mandatory activities or panels. The fact that he was here, at 6am, was highly abnormal and just as uncomfortable.

Clint couldn’t have come early _today_? He had to have shown up last week and left Bucky with this bullshit now?

“Hey, man,” Brock greeted him. “How’s it going?” He pulled out the seat next to Bucky, turning his chair so he was looking directly at Bucky, legs spread wide as he bounced one of them up and down quickly. Bucky had to keep from staring at it, bouncing up and down. Like Brock was on edge, despite his plastered grin as he contemplated Bucky. He was slouched down low in the seat, resting his face against one hand. Just…staring.

“Fine,” Bucky said. He didn’t add ‘what do you want?’ even though that was the predominant encircling thought.

It wasn’t his seat that Brock was sitting in. Each module had it’s own set of seating. Bucky was in his own chair. Brock was sitting in Jane’s. Not that Bucky could safely point that out. There was no one else here. It was 6am (plenty of other seats) and it wasn’t like Jane would be coming. She wasn’t a class-goer either, electing for the online videos in order to better balance her classwork and ongoing research project. She had been the first person in the class to get accepted into a research program.

Jane was one of those people who wouldn’t have the slightest problem getting into whatever residency program she wanted. People would be fighting over her. They’d probably fight over Brock, too, in all honesty. Hell, everyone would probably fight over anyone as long as it meant they could potentially avoid the dredges of the class like Bucky.

“Good to hear you’re doing well,” Brock said. “So that histology retake went well then?”

Fuck him.

Just…fuck him for saying that. There was an intense weariness to the thought, but that didn’t bely the heartfelt anger that surged through Bucky at the pointed offhand comment. At the maliciousness that Bucky would never be able to prove.

This was why Bucky was bottom of the barrel when it came to medical school. Because at the beginning of first year’s second semester, Bucky had failed histology.

Fucking histology. One of the easier classes in the entire repertoire of medical school, and he’d managed to pull off a 65%. Not even close. It wasn’t even like he was a rounding argument away from it. It was a solid fail.

It had meant he’d had to retake the final, this time with his medical school career on the line. Fail again, and he was out. Not welcome back into the building. Card disabled. ID confiscated. Name unacceptable into any medical school in the country. An entire career scratched out before it began.

That night, driving back from the school with that 65% tumbling in his head, Bucky had stopped at every drug store between the campus and his apartment. He’d walked into each one, systematically, and bought a seemingly arbitrary smattering of pills. He had the drug knowledge to pick the more dangerous ones – he’d _passed_ pharmacology – and had chosen accordingly.

When he’d gotten home, he’d stashed them all under his kitchen sink and carefully closed the doors. Then he taken off his shoes and socks, so he could stand barefoot on the cold tile and look himself in the eye in the mirror.

“If you fail this final a second time,” he’d told himself. “You will fucking kill yourself, you useless slug. Do you understand, you lazy piece of shit?”

So, clearly, living alone in an apartment had been doing wonders for his mental health.

And, of course, he’d gotten his ass in gear and passed the final with what was actually a pretty good grade. Not that it showed in his class ranking. Having to retake it in the first place meant he got a flat 70% in the class, no matter what the number actually came out to.

He hadn’t cared at the time. Passing had been enough.

He kept the pills, though – they were under his bed now – as a reminder not to slack off again.

So yeah. Fuck Brock for bringing that up. For using that condescending tone. For asking even though he already knew the answer. For sitting here and pinning Bucky with that smug look, knowing Bucky had no recourse or viable accusation to make.

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “It went great. Thanks for asking.”

“Good to hear,” Brock grinned. “And hey. Next time you feel like you’re failing a class like that, just tell me okay? I’m sure someone in the mod will help you out.”

“I’m so grateful,” Bucky said, deadpan.

“Good,” Brock quipped back, and then grinned again. “Well, I’ll let you get back to work. Can’t waste a second now, ya know?” he added, and then he stood and clapped Bucky on the shoulder on his way to his own seat.

Like Bucky would be getting any more work done this morning. He might as well give up and go get breakfast. Especially if Brock was going to sit in oppressive silence over on his side of the room.

Fucker didn’t even have his backpack with him. He was just going to play around on his phone and then sit through lecture, just listening without taking notes, and he’d probably retain every second. Brock and Jane would just keep going over every lecture once and waltzing through the classes. Clint would at least be quick enough with the material to get through it all the times he needed to. And then there would be Bucky. Flipping through those same last thirty-seven slides until the end of time itself.

_Fuck it_ , he thought to himself, and closed the PowerPoint. He’d play solitaire or something for the next hour or so. Wind down his headspace. At least tomorrow was Friday. The weekend would give him a margin of breathing room.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Steve groaned loudly at the sudden melody that jolted him awake. The noise was supposed to be a soothing wake up call, but it only took a couple of days for his brain to associate it with discomfort. Soon he’d switch it to something else, only to come to hate the new song as much as he’d begun to hate the last. A vicious Pavlovian cycle that he wasn’t going to be breaking from any time soon.

Nevertheless, Steve rolled over with an annoyed grunt and stumbled to his feet. He always set up the coffee brewer the night before, so all he had to do was stumble out and hit the button. Then watch it slowly percolate. Perhaps remove the pot and stick his face directly under the stream, facial burns be damned.

He should save up and get one of those coffee makers that had an internal timer. One of those “start brewing at 8:22am” ones, so he could drink straight from the pot at 8:31 on the dot and not have to worry about anything else. Maybe he could talk Bucky into pitching in. Steve was starting to get the feeling that money was not a problem with the guy. So, hell, maybe he could take Sharon’s suggestion in stride and offer the guy a blowjob in exchange for a coffee maker. That seemed reasonable.

Stumbling out into the kitchen he was suddenly face to face with the man in question. Bucky Barnes, in the flesh, sitting at the kitchen table in boxers and a long sleeved t-shirt, with a piece of toast and a mug of coffee. The mug read “Nobody's perfect. I'm Nobody.” and Steve’s first thought was the dick sucking idea from three seconds ago. His second thought was who the fuck bothered to put on a long sleeve shirt but kept the underwear. The third was—

“It’s 8:30!” Steve exclaimed. “You have class. Did your car break. Here, I’ll drive you!”

“Steve,” Bucky said calmly.

“Where are my keys?”

“Steve.”

“Shit, where are my pants?”

“My god, Steve, just--”

“Where are _your_ pants.”

“Steve!” Bucky shouted, and Steve finally focused on his face.

“Coffee’s ready,” Bucky said, jerking his thumb behind him. “Although I’m not sure whether you need a cement mixer’s worth or none at all ever again for the rest of your life. It’s definitely one of the two.”

Bucky shoved the rest of the toast in his mouth, and twisted on the chair, coffee mug in hand, to watch Steve get coffee. Steve wondered briefly if there was anything he could do to make pouring coffee look sexy, and then gave up in favor of pursuing caffeination - his coffee mug was a Stormtrooper head. No one wanted to watch his skinny ass pour coffee. Especially not in nothing but boxers.

“You gonna tell me why you’re here?” Steve asked. “I distinctly remember you telling me that, should I ever find you sitting at the kitchen table on a school morning, that I should get your ass in gear.”

“Class already started, anyway, it’d be too late. But nah, I’ve decided that one day of watching the lectures instead of attending them in person, will not a disaster make. It's Thursday, so I’ve got the weekend ahead of me. I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to find time for a few hours of video. Maybe I'll even stay home Friday.”

“You can watch them online?” Steve asked, coming back to the table with the mug of coffee. Normally he’d let it cool while he got dressed, but not having to wait for the coffee to brew had saved him a few minutes. He had time.

“I can watch them online, yes.”

“Then why the fuck do you go to school every day?”

“Structure,” Bucky shrugged. “And I learn better in person. And I like the atmosphere of the school, because we take exams in the same room as the lecture. And when you learn something in the same place that you test on it, your scores improve.”

“Study drunk, test drunk.”

“Yeah, exactly. So I like to be physically present in the classroom, because--”

Bucky was interrupted by his phone ringing. Like, actually ringing, not just buzzing with a text or a notification. A soft repeating chiming melody from where it sat, innocuous, on the table. Steve glanced up at Bucky to see if was going to get it, and was startled to see all the blood had drained from Bucky’s face. He was staring down at the name on the phone like it was going to bite him. Too curious for his own good, Steve tilted his head to the side and read the name.

_Alexander_. Nothing else to go on.

“You gonna get that?” Steve asked quietly. “Or would you like me to throw it off the balcony?”

“I’d better get it,” Bucky said, and then slowly did so.

“Good morning, sir,” Bucky said.

Steve’s eyebrows raised in question, but Bucky didn't seem likely to answer any questions at the moment.

“No, I’m…I am,” Bucky said, glancing at Steve, and then pushing back his chair and standing up from the table.

“I don’t…I don’t understand why you called if you thought I should be in class right now.”

He was retreating down the hall to his room.

“No. No, I’m sorry. Sorry, I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful.”

His door shut, and the rest of the conversation was lost in muffled vibration. Steve sat still and contemplated the plate across from his, toast crumbs still littering it and the table. Then he stood. He might as well get ready for class after all.

 

***

 

Fuck the entire concept of a normalized study schedule.

It’s not like it was doing him any good. Missing a few slides wasn’t going to kill him. It was the difference between a 79% and a 77% and at this point he was so firmly bottom quartile of the class that it was laughably irrelevant. Hell anything below an 85% would pretty much just secure his lower rank standing. Who gave a shit?

_Your father._

Fuck _that_ particular thought. Its unwelcome presence did nothing but cement the idea that he needed alcohol.

He shut his computer with finality and did a quick change into one of the outfits he had laid aside for those few days at school they actually saw patients. Or ex-patients. Or fake patients. Or any variation thereof. One of his public-presentable outfits.

And okay, maybe he put more effort into it than normal. Maybe he stopped in the bathroom halfway down the hall because Steve was in the living room and that gave an opportunity for the application of a “special occasion” skin-tone lipstick and the slightest touch of eyeliner.

Once he was as close to presentable as he was capable of managing (okay, those were some excellent ass-complimenting pants, tailoring was definitely worth the stress of having it done) he strode into the living room.

Confirmation bias right there. He wasn’t stupid enough to continue believing that Steve had just ogled him the way Bucky had thought it looked like. The way Bucky had been watching (primping) for.

Bucky, though – Bucky definitely raked his eyes up and down Steve. The guy was on his hands and knees over a large sheet of paper that was absolutely covered in charcoal. Steve, was also covered in charcoal, but it highlight his ethereal softness, rather than obscuring it. As their eyes met, Steve’s face spread into a wide natural grin. Happy to see Bucky.

It pissed Bucky off.

Bucky’s lip quirked in a bitter smile as he announced “Gonna hit the town for a while. Have a good night.”

“Oh,” Steve said, slightly taken aback, but not overly surprised. “Oh, okay. Heading out with some med school friends?”

“Nope,” Bucky said. “I just figured it was my turn, you know. You guys seemed to have fun yesterday and all, and I’m glad I didn’t end up the fifth wheel or anything, but I thought I’d give it a go. Do something besides study, for once.”

During his petty mini-speech Steve’s  face had fallen drastically, first falling into concern and then twisting into anger.

“We didn’t exclude you on purpose,” he snapped at Bucky. “We were trying to be nice and let you study.”

“Thanks for that,” Bucky snapped back, wide fake grin still plastered on his face. “Real nice of y’all. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going off to get wasted.”

Steve stood up angrily, and Bucky was thrown when he started angrily shoving his feet into his shoes.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Coming with,” Steve announced, lines of tension with visible in his shoulders. “It’s not safe to just go out and get drunk alone, so I’m coming with.”

“How about no,” Bucky said. He threw a fake salute and was out the door before further commentary could be offered. He made sure to take the stairs quickly enough that Steve wouldn’t be able to keep up, and then jogged out to his car in the lot.

 

***

 

Bucky was three drinks in when he suddenly remembered that he was a piece of shit. Which made a lot of sense because only a piece of shit would be a petty asshole to a nice roommate like Steve who had been nothing but pleasant and gracious. Only a piece of shit would repeatedly ditch friends to study only to end up for hours on Tumblr and Instagram, and then whine about being left out when they left him alone. Only a piece of shit would top it all off with going out to a gay bar on a school night, filled with every intention to get wasted.

Bucky put his head down on the bar and groaned, which, given the mostly-empty weekday atmosphere, drew immediate attention.

“Long day?” asked a voice behind him.

Bucky felt a hand run down his back once, and then withdraw. He sat up with a bitter laugh, and looked at the ceiling. He should get another drink. Maybe a shot. He was drunk enough that taste wasn’t as important anymore. Plus, in for a penny, in for a pound.

“Let me buy you a drink,” the voice said, and Bucky looked over to identify its owner.

The guy was older than him, but not much older. Sandy blonde hair that was fine enough to move with the air conditioning above them.

“Or maybe not,” the guy laughed, when Bucky just smiled instead of responding. “Maybe you’ve had enough.”

“Sorry, I was staring at your hair,” Bucky laughed, because the guy seemed nice. He was smiling. He had a nice smile, and he was smiling at Bucky, who definitely did not deserve to be smiled at right now. And his hand had felt nice on Bucky’s back.

No one touched Bucky these days.

Actually, no one had ever really touched Bucky.

“Well, thank you,” the guy said, still smiling. He reached up and ran his fingers through his own hair, making it stand straight up. “Yours isn’t half bad, either.”

Bucky snorted. “Thanks. Honestly, it’s probably time to get it cut. I’m turning into that one student who looks like he’s trying to channel his inner 1960s flower power. Like, ‘I shower, I promise!’”

The guy laughed obligingly, taking a seat next to Bucky.

“Looks like a perfect length to me,” he continued. “Your boyfriend probably appreciates the hand hold.”

Bucky blushed roughly, looking down at the table and rubbing his thumb back and forth along the condensation of the empty glass pinned between his hands.

“As if,” he said. He meant it to be nonchalant and humorous, but he was too close to drunk for it to come out as anything but sad.

“No boyfriend?” the guy confirmed.

“No time,” Bucky said.

Lie. If he were smarter or more diligent or had anything to offer a relationship that wouldn’t require huge amounts of compromise on the part of his partner, he’d find time.

“Right, you said ‘student,’ didn’t you,” the guy nodded. “Where do you go?”

“The medical school here in the city,” Bucky admitted.

“Oh! So you must be super smart then!”

“I try.”

Lie. Minimal effort put in at all times. His father never missed an opportunity to point out how Bucky was just skating by.

“Seems like a waste,” the guy said, reaching out to rub a strand of Bucky’s hair between his fingers. He completed the motion slowly, waiting to see if Bucky would stop him.

“Maybe it is a waste,” Bucky said quietly, eyes fixated on that empty glass condensation.

Lie. The only waste here was the time spent ticking away. The oxygen Bucky used on each breath. The wetness underneath his fingers as he rubbed back and forth and back against the empty glass.

No one here but us potatoes.

That was the punchline to a joke Bucky couldn’t always remember the set up for, but something about the cadence had stuck with him, and sometimes it played back, unasked for.

No one here but us potatoes.

As pointless and out of context as Bucky’s presence here tonight.

“Jason,” the guy finally introduced himself.

“Bucky,” Bucky said, because when he was a doctor he’d go by James, so “Bucky” was safe for strange men in bars.

Dr. James Barnes.

“Bucky, huh? Well, Bucky, what do you say about that drink?”

“Let’s just skip to the next part,” Bucky said, tilting his head and winking suggestively. He thought about biting his lip, too, but he figured he was too drunk to pull it off, not to mention it would be overkill. This guy had been looking for a quick bathroom fuck from the word go. Bucky didn’t really need to put in the effort here.

Jason grinned and nodded a couple of times.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s take a stroll.”

_Nothing in this world is free_ only applies when the thing is valuable.

They held hands on the way to the bathroom, and Bucky savored the feeling of skin against his own – Jason’s hands were soft – and Bucky pretended it was intimacy rather than one stranger drawing another behind him.

The bathroom was empty and Jason threw the latch right there at the door. Bucky had kind of expected to at least go into one of the stalls, but he wasn’t sure how to make any changes to the script at this point – in for a penny – so he went compliantly to his knees – in for a pound – and worked at the guy’s belt buckle.

Jason leaned back against the wall while Bucky struggled with drunken dexterity – boxers, not briefs – but he became active quickly enough. In fact, he became active the moment Bucky had more than the tip in his mouth.

It was not gentle. Jason was right. This length was good for grabbing hold of.

When he was done, Jason left him on the floor after running his hand over Bucky’s head one more time – good boy – and saying something generically grateful. He did not help Bucky to his feet. He did not offer to return the favor. Bucky wouldn’t have accepted anyway.

By the time Bucky made it out to the bar again, Jason was gone. Bucky ordered a cranberry and vodka to rinse his mouth out.

Dr. James Barnes.

Lie.

Bucky was never going to make it that far.

 

***

 

Steve closed the message, and then opened it again. He was lying on his back in bed, phone held up above his face, and 7am on a Friday was way too early to deal with the potential danger in the string of text messages from “Bucky Roommate.”

_Sorry. I am such an asshole._

1:47am.

_You’re really nice._

1:49am.

_Your hair is way prettier than Jason’s hair._

2:02am.

Steve was going to need coffee for this. He rolled out of bed and stumbled to his feet. He paused at the door to grind the heels of his hands against his eyes, rubbing hard enough to see white electricity, and then opened the door to shuffle down the hall.

He did not expect Bucky to be sitting at the kitchen table. For all 7am was “early” for Steve, the opposite had been firmly established for Bucky who was, as Steve stood and blinked at him, staring at a bowl of dry cereal in dissatisfaction.

“Hey,” Steve finally said, resuming his walk down the hall.

Bucky grunted in response.

“You want coffee?” he pressed, because the kitchen most definitely did not smell like coffee yet, and that was way up there on Steve’s mental prioritization.

“Need water,” Bucky answered. “Not a dehydrator.”

“Bullshit,” Steve snorted, shuffling past Bucky and beginning his morning fight with the coffeemaker. He clipped the edge of the sink with the pot as he filled it, but it didn’t break so whatever. “Everyone can always use hot coffee. You can spout whatever physiological bullshit you want at me about carbohydrates and sodium levels or whatever, but coffee is the first step in curing a hangover. End of discussion.”

Bucky turned his head to look at Steve wryly and said, “That obvious I’m hung over?”

“I had some other clues besides your announcement yesterday night.” When all he got in response to that was a mumbled apology and a slight look of confusion, Steve continued, “So who’s Jason?”

The color quite literally drained out of Bucky’s face. Steve watched it go. One moment wary confusion mixed with exhaustion, the next nothing but fear. Steve’s stomach dropped in guilt. He wouldn’t have been a little shit about mentioning the text messages if he’d known the reaction Bucky was going to have to him bringing them up.

“Shit,” Bucky spat, twisting his body to look around the room. He stood quickly, winced, and did a little half circle in place, looking around.

“Hey, it’s fine,” Steve tried to placate.

“Shit,” Bucky muttered. He walked away from Steve, placing one hand against the hallway wall for balance, and stumbled into his room. Steve, on an instinct, followed him. He peered around the turn into Bucky’s Forbidden Room, trying to make himself unobtrusive but still available in case of emergency.

Bucky was digging around in a pair of slacks discarded on the floor. The ones Steve had seen him leave in yesterday. Eventually, Bucky emerged semi-triumphant with his phone in his hand.

“It’s really fine, you weren’t--” Steve started, and then cut himself off. Weren’t what? Weird? He’d definitely been a little weird.

Steve didn’t say anything else, letting Bucky read through the couple of texts. Steve, although watching carefully, couldn’t tell if Bucky was relieved or further agitated by the message contents.

“It’s fine,” he tried again, and then cursed himself for being unable to articulate anything concrete or reassuring. Just rote social norms. _It’s totally fine (asshole) no big deal_.

“I’m really, really sorry about these,” Bucky said carefully, looking down at his phone and not at Steve. “Sorry about being a jerk in the first place, too. It was childish. This is all childish.”

“Bucky, it’s honestly fine,” Steve pressed, and his desire to be believed carried him a step into the room and – in for a penny, in for a pound – then another, up until he was standing right in front of Bucky. Whose hands were shaking slightly. Over a couple of text messages.

Steve felt the edges of his mouth twitch to smile. It shouldn’t have been cute, this near panic, but it was. Bucky, hunching over his phone trying to figure out if he’d texted anybody else – Steve hoped not, hoped it was just him – was a moment Steve didn’t want to have to forget. He didn’t want to lose this to time. It was one thing for a guy to be hot, but this fumbling concern was convincing Steve maybe it would be worth this risk to just…say something. Bucky was clearly worried he’d made a bad impression on Steve. Maybe there was a reason for that.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” Bucky mumbled again.

“Everyone gets wasted and drunk texts people,” Steve said, suddenly finding his words. And once they started, it was an avalanche. “And you texted nice things. Lots of people text shitty things. Or start bar fights or something. I don’t know. The whole thing was actually…kinda cute.”

“Cute?” Bucky said, looking up and raising one eyebrow, with a weird twist to his mouth.

“Yeah, I mean,” Steve muttered – in for a penny – “You’re cute. And like, really hot. And smart.” – in for a pound.

“I’m not smart,” Bucky said quickly, and Steve snorted.

“Not denying ‘hot’ then?”

Bucky shook his head once and said, “No, that’s not—I’m just—I’m not smart, okay?”

“Okay…” Steve said slowly. “You wanna…maybe…weigh in on the rest of my, um, little speech there? I mean, you clearly like my hair, at least.”

Bucky glanced up, chewing on his bottom lip and flicking his eyes back and forth between Steve’s. Trying to get a read on Steve’s face. Steve, for his part, attempted his most open and pleasantly interested facial expression, while praying it didn’t come off as constipated and morose.

“It’s nice hair, ya know?” Bucky ventured, speaking slowly. “Blond is…is…it can be good.”

Well, now he was adorably hopeless at this, too. More importantly, he was dancing around the almost-compliment, and people only dance around compliments when they have something to lose. Or so Steve had heard from others, as Steve personally had never danced around anything he wanted to say in his entire life.

“You wanna get coffee some time?” he said, filled with the reckless optimism of sudden potential. “Like, out. Someplace that isn’t here, where we can actually talk and shit.”

 

***

 

Bucky’s stomach twisted with heady adrenaline, and he blinked once. He could not be having this conversation. Even a single innocuous cup of coffee had such potential for flagrant disaster. And…he’d been a dick to this guy not twenty-four hours ago. How was Steve not aware how horrifyingly terrible this idea was?

“Status quo” was a well known term for a reason. Because it was safe, and Bucky – wrapped up in medical school and familial bullshit – needed safe. He needed at least one thing in his life that was safe, and if the thrill that went through Bucky’s body as Steve brushed at his bangs with thin charcoal-stained fingers was any indication, then Steve was anything but “safe”.

Bucky needed stability. He had classes and rotation preparations and step one and thinking about the way this would affect his home life and what his father would say and the delicate balance he was already walking with his social life and – fuck! Clint! Clint did not get Bucky this apartment so Bucky could shack up with his friend.

Bucky did not need this kind of complicated distraction.

As the silence stretched between them, the pure peace on Steve’s face fell into crumbles. Obvious hurt rose in its place, and he tried to hide it with a smile that twisted up halfway and then dried up.

“My bad,” Steve said, and his eyes winced as he spoke.

The bottom fell out from under Bucky’s already teetering pile of arguments.

“Coffee sounds awesome,” Bucky said. “I’d really love that. With you. Plus, your hair really is nice.”

Steve’s reactionary smile was worth the possibility of every single danger. Even if they all came true at the same time.

 

***

 

Steve had had to go to class, and his classes weren’t the type you could just blow off to watch later online, so he had to physically leave the apartment. Bucky followed him to the door, seemingly unable to let more than a few feet of distance between them, even though it was inevitable. It wasn’t like he could crash Steve’s class. Someone would notice to strange man wearing three layers of clothing trying to hide under Steve’s desk.

“Okay, but we’re gonna talk about this later, right?” Steve said, as he stuck his head back into the apartment from the walkway outside.

“Only if you take your fucking inhaler with you,” Bucky snapped, picking it up from the counter and shoving it at Steve’s face. “Can’t you just keep that thing in your backpack?”

“Oh hey, thanks,” Steve said, shoving it in his back pocket, but not moving from his half-in-half-out position. “But we’re gonna talk, right?”

“I thought we were gonna get coffee,” Bucky said, then pursed his lips. Steve was already dangerously close to being very late. He doubted Steve’s professors would care as much as some, but it grated under Bucky’s skin, nonetheless.

“We can get coffee while we talk, sure,” Steve grinned. “But if you don’t think I’m not angling for as much as I can get, then you aren’t seeing yourself clearly.”

“Class,” Bucky ordered, shutting the door in Steve’s face and forcing him to jerk his fingers back to avoid getting them pinched.

“Talking!” Steve called through the closed door, and Bucky thought he might have to actually go out and force this guy to class – maybe drive him – but was placated by the sound of Steve’s step on the stairs.

He turned around and faced the empty apartment.

Well, shit.

It was one thing to feel the rush of the moment and realize those little bits of fantasies had the potential of coming true, and then something else entirely to be alone and panic over it. He placed his back to the door and slid down it to sit on the floor.

No, this was okay. His analytical nature took over as he tried to process the moment. Steve had specifically said talking – _he wants more than I’ll be able to give him_ – so there would be an opportunity to define this – _it’s just fucking coffee why the hell are you freaking out?_ – and Steve seemed like the kind of guy who’d be happy with whatever Bucky wanted to give – _right up until the moment he asks for something he doesn’t know is a big deal and you shred yourself to give it to him because you can’t say no worth shit you useless incompetent fucking moron_.

“It’s coffee!” he shouted out loud to the room.

Of course he’d had to text Steve about the nice hair. Of course he’d done that. Pulled the rug out from everyone’s life over a few shots and a blowjob.

Worst doctor ever.

 

***

 

Bucky did watch the first of the four lectures from that day. He watched the first one, and then he rewarded himself with an hour of Netflix. Which became two hours. Then four. When Steve came home, he turned off his lights, pretended he was already asleep, and cried until it came true.

 

***

 

“I think I freaked him out,” Steve said sadly. He was sitting with his feet up on the chair seat, knees tucked under his chin so he could rest his head on them. His bangs were in his eyes again. He really should find time to get a hair cut. Or just ask Natasha to do it again.

“And why is that?” Sharon answered. She didn’t stop painting, tilting the canvas to try and coax the watercolor to bend to her will, but Steve didn’t doubt she was paying attention.

“Well, first I ambush the hungover guy and guilt trip him into agreeing to coffee—”

“I doubt it went down exactly like that, but okay.”

“—and then I change it from coffee to, like, ‘talking’ and shit, and I think maybe he was just agreeing to something really casual and he thinks that I think we’re like, dating or something.”

“Did you say ‘dating’ to him at any point?”

“No…”

“Then he doesn’t think you’re dating. He seems like a smart guy.”

“Still,” Steve said, sighing heavily. “I think I might have given the impression I thought this was going to be default-serious. And he’s clearly not in a place to do something serious right now.”

“Do you want something serious?” Sharon asked, rotating the paper she was working on to get at the other side.

“I don’t know! I just want to have an entire uninterrupted conversation with the guy!”

“And I take it that you have firmly rejected my ‘swallow his dick’ proposal?”

“Let it go, Sharon!”

“It’s a good suggestion. It’s gotten me far in life.”

When Steve groaned and buried his face in his knees, hiding her from his line of sight, he heard her put the paintbrush down, shifting her body. He peeked back up at her to find she was staring right at him, calculating.

“Why are you so worried about this?” she asked gently. “And don’t give me any bullshit about ‘if this goes wrong I still have to live with him for a year’ all right?”

“I don’t want to freak him out,” Steve said carefully.

“Why?”

“Because it’s fucking rude to freak people out? Why are you grilling me like this?”

Sharon stood in silence for a few moments, and then turned back to her painting.

“Because I’m scared you really like the guy,” she finally said. “I’m allowed to be worried. Now, either get to work on your own stuff, or I’m kicking you out of my house.”

Steve sighed heavily, but obligingly reached down to start unpacking his current work in progress.

 

***

 

On Saturday morning, Bucky left the apartment at 4am to go to the school and study. He spent a few hours in his mod room, a few hours at the coffee shop, and a few hours in one of the large study rooms. Then his laptop battery died, and he had to go back to the mod.

He hadn’t watched any more of the lectures, but he was surprisingly up to date with the proposed social reform changes coming to a vote next month. Maybe he should find his voter registration card and actually participate when the time came around.

When he got back to the mod room, it was a lot more full than it had been at 4am. He plugged his computer in, and launched the second lecture that he’d skipped from Friday, putting in his headphones and leaning in close to the screen to communicate that he wasn’t here to socialize.

“Still on that lecture?” Brock said, suddenly leaning down over Bucky’s shoulder. His hand was on Bucky’s back and Bucky was suddenly – _irrationally_ – reminded of Jason.

“Nah, I already finished Friday’s lectures,” Bucky lied. “I’m just going over this one again.”

“Really?” Brock said, confusion heavy in his voice. “I didn’t think that one was difficult enough to warrant another play through.”

He stood up and clapped Bucky on the back, and Bucky tried not to choke on nothing.

 

***

 

“What if he died?” Steve said into the phone. “I haven’t seen him in over a day. That’s grounds to file a missing person’s report or something, right?”

“Dude,” Sam said, and Steve could so easily imagine his facial expression as he said it. “This guy better really fuck up soon so you can lower your opinion of him. I can’t handle this. I’m getting jealous.”

“He’s was actually kind of a real dick to me the other day,” Steve muttered. “And I’m not thrilled with the way he’s avoiding me right now.”

“And you’ve already forgiven him? You? You hold grudges like someone stuck them to you with superglue.”

“Shut up.”

“Did he at least apologize really nicely?”

“He did apologize, but he…he was drunk.”

“Oh my god!”

“Hey!” Steve snapped. “It was really sweet and he said he liked my hair.”

When Sam’s only response was to laugh uproariously, Steve had to fight the urge to throw the phone over the balcony.

 

***

 

Sunday morning didn’t exist for Bucky. He’d gotten in late enough Saturday night that he just kept sleeping. He woke up sometime around sunset, then rolled over and thought about how much he wanted to take a shower until he fell asleep again.

 

***

 

“I guess I was just being really stupid,” Steve said sadly. He was at Sharon’s again – this time they were both working – and Natasha was over, too. She was not working. She was sitting on Sharon’s couch with a pint of ice cream that she’d bitten Steve’s hand for trying to touch.

“I don’t think you’re the one being stupid,” Sharon shrugged. “But then, I’m biased toward your side. His loss, if he wants to agree to get coffee with you and then drop off the face of the fucking planet.”

“Have you texted him?” Natasha said, through a mouthful of chocolate chip cookie dough.

“I’ve thought about it?” Steve said, and Sharon made a noise of half-amused disgust. “Look, it’s really awkward, okay?” Steve protested. “We live in the same space, I just keep thinking we’ve got to see each other eventually. Texting seems weird.”

“It’s not weird,” Sharon scoffed. “You’re part of the millennial generation. Get your head in the game.”

“Gotta get'cha, get'cha head in the game,” Natasha muttered, and then added, more loudly, “Is it possible that he really is just busy? Clint says this class and the next class are pretty intense. Exams every couple of weeks. High volume material.”

“So maybe he’s just busy?” Steve echoed, with one eyebrow raised in disbelief. “Busy enough that he can’t even say hi in passing at night?”

“Tell you what,” Natasha sighed. “I’m modeling for you tomorrow right? Well, how about I use that as a cover to have a conversation with him. See what I can figure out.”

“Absolutely not!” Steve snapped. “Besides, if I can’t manage to have a conversation with him in my own apartment, I don’t know how you’re going to manage it.”

Natasha pointed a spoonful of ice cream at Steve and said, “If I want to have a conversation with someone, then I will find a way to have a conversation with someone. End of story.”

“Get him, girl,” Sharon said absentmindedly from where she was working.

“Do I not get a vote in this?” Steve asked.

“No,” both Sharon and Natasha answered in chorus.

 

***

 

On Monday morning, Bucky dragged himself to his mod room at 4:30am with only two lectures watched and that day’s materials completely unopened. Unreviewed. Unprepared.

“It’s fine,” he told himself. “Now I know. I won’t watch them over the weekend. Lesson learned.”

He refused to think about how often he’d learned that particular lesson already.

At least he’d showered.

 

***

 

Bucky paused halfway up the last flight of stairs. Although August was finally winding to a close, the heat was still sticky and cloying, and the flights of stairs made even the short walk from the car nearly unbearable. Yet Bucky came to standstill – weight of his backpack pulling him backwards – right in the middle of it, because there was a small redhead sitting in front of his apartment door. She had one leg bent with her knee to her chest and the other stretched out, letting her lean back against the door as she sat and read her book. The level of casual authority with which she sprawled, even out in the middle of public, made Bucky check and double check the apartment number he could just barely make out above her head.

Nope. This was definitely his apartment. He glanced back down at the woman, who was now looking up at him over the top of her book, one eyebrow carefully raised.

“Bucky Barnes,” she said, in greeting.

“Uh,” Bucky said in response.

“Natasha,” she continued firmly, and Bucky accepted that must be her own name.

As she stood, brushing the dust off the back of her jeans – finger holding her place in her book – Bucky realized he’d seen her before. It took him a moment, surprise and confusion clogging his thoughts, but he suddenly recognized her from the Steve’s snapchats the night he’d gone out to that bar with Clint last week.

Natasha took a step back from the door, looking down the last half-flight at where Bucky still hesitated and said, “You’re either going to have to say something, or let me in. It’s hot outside, and that puts me in a bad mood.”

Bucky could suddenly feel the sharp edge of his keys where he was clutching them tightly in his palm. He kept his eye on her while he made it the rest of the way to his door. She hovered behind him while he turned the key, and it occurred to him that she was wearing long sleeves. Thick black fabric clinging to her arms all the way down to her wrist. She should be sweating profusely – even though she’d paired the top with tiny little short-shorts – but she wasn’t.

“Thank you,” Natasha said calmly, then swept past him to enter the apartment, Bucky trailing in her wake. He should totally call Steve and check on the situation. This was how people got stabbed and robbed in their own apartments.

But then he’d have to call Steve, and getting stabbed just seemed like less trouble.

_Sir, why did you let the strange woman in?_

_Well, officer, it’s because she walked in the door when I opened it._

_It’s because she was pretty, wasn’t it? You were hoping to get laid?_

_Officer, I don’t think you’re understanding just how incapable I am of standing up to anyone who has the slightest bit of confidence in themselves._

“Steve will be back soon,” Natasha said, and Bucky couldn’t help the noise of half-amusement half-distress, because that should be his line, except for the fact that he didn’t have the slightest clue what time Steve would be back. Roommates with the guy two weeks, and Bucky couldn’t even hazard a guess.

“So,” he said, dropping his backpack back the entrance to the hallway and them coming back to sit on the couch, thinking Natasha would join him there. She didn’t, though. She stepped past him just as he sat down, and she walked into the kitchen.

“Yes?” she said, prompting him to continue.

“So, you’re a friend of Steve’s?”

“Yes,” she said. She was making coffee. Went right for where it was in the cabinet, too. Clearly she was comfortable with the space.

_Shit_ , Bucky swore to himself, suddenly reaching for an unexpected conclusion. Maybe this was Steve’s girl. She was certainly pretty and poised enough to warrant it. Maybe Bucky had misunderstood that whole awkward exchange last Friday.

Maybe he’d been avoiding Steve for three days for no reason at all.

Maybe he was a moron.

“Do you want any coffee?” Natasha asked.

“Sure,” Bucky said. Always say yes to coffee, even if you don’t want any. Otherwise, when you say you’re tired, you just get told to try drinking more coffee. More caffeine. More heavy black or brown nauseating weight that has stopped having any affect on you years ago.

“So,” Bucky tried again. “How do you know Steve?”

“Through Clint,” Natasha said, pouring water into the…French press? They had a French press? Bucky had thought it was just the regular coffee machine that sat on the counter next to the fridge.

“So you’re a friend of Clint’s?” he asked.

“Yes,” Natasha said, glancing up to give him an uninterpretable look. “I’m friends with Steve. I’m friends with Clint. I’m friends with a lot of people. Are you ever going to get around to asking me what I’m doing here?”

“Um, yeah actually, what exactly a-”

“How do you take it?” Natasha interrupted him.

“What?” Bucky floundered.

“Your coffee. How do you take it?”

“Just…I, um. Black is fine.”

Lie. He always preferred it with cream.

Natasha nodded without giving any kind of verbal response, and Bucky bit the inside of his cheek. He was confused and exhausted and had a lot of work to get done. When Natasha glanced up at him again, as though giving in and granting him permission to reattempt his question, he just leaned back against the couch and looked at the ceiling.

Eventually, Natasha came in to join him, a mug of coffee in each hand. The one she handed Bucky said “All I Need is Coffee and Mascara” and the one she kept said “I Want to K I _ _  You: Results May Vary.”

He took an absentminded sip of his coffee and was slightly startled to find it had cream in it, despite his request for black earlier. He decided to chalk it up to a weird coincidence or misunderstanding and took a careful sip.

“So,” Natasha began, and Bucky was almost certain she was mocking him with the single syllable, “I’m here because I’m helping Steve with his photography class. He always works better with human subjects, so we’re heading down to the lake. He needs some water shots.”

“Okay,” Bucky said.

Natasha sipped her coffee and watched him over the top of her mug.

“You can go,” she said eventually. “I don’t need someone to babysit me here till Steve gets back. I can entertain myself.”

“Okay,” Bucky said.

He snagged his backpack from where he’d left it on the floor as he walked down to his room. He made sure to turn his head away from the painting of the woman hanging in the hallway as he passed it.

 

***

 

He heard when Steve came in. He couldn’t make out the individual words, but the tone of voice was there. Easy familiarity. Comfortable confidence. Pitches rising and falling loudly as they spent a few minutes organizing themselves before they headed out.

Bucky, who had set up his computer in his closed room but had done nothing else productive, nearly stepped outside and invited himself along. He could hold stuff, or chase birds out of the shot. He could….could….

What a stupid fucking idea. Why would he invite himself along with a stranger and a half-stranger when he had work to do and his first exam on Friday?

Still, someone should talk to Steve about Natasha’s long sleeves. Bucky didn’t want to butt in where nothing was his business, but he hoped that woman had at least one friend who was paying attention if she was in trouble.

Oh. Right. Clint. She was friends with Clint, Bucky remembered.

So that was all right, then. Clint was way more observant than anyone Bucky knew. He was going to make a great doctor. If anyone needed to be worried about Natasha, then Clint would already have noticed.

 

***

 

Natasha didn’t say anything during the drive out of town and down to the lake. Even Steve’s casual comments on the scenery and traffic were met with inattentive closed lipped smiles, and eventually Steve let it drop.

It wasn’t until they’d parked and headed almost all the way down to the lake edge that anything changed. The day was hot enough that several families were out down by the sandier area a little ways away, eating lunch in the shade or trying to cool off in the lake. Parents and older siblings kept glancing around them, watching to make sure none of the younger children had swum out beyond their depth, out to where the gritty bottom of the lake plummeted away to unreachable depths. This lake was infamous for that. The crystal water created the illusion of nearness, but anyone who’d attempted swimming to the bottom knew the impossibility of that sudden depth.

“I’m worried about that boy,” Natasha announced.

It was so typically Natasha. No prerequisite conversation. No warning.

“What boy?” Steve asked, and then recognized the only real possibility. “Bucky?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” he said, dragging the word out so it was it’s own warning. Okaaaaay, stretching out like an unwelcoming fence. His lip twitched with a flair of irritation.

“Don’t get pissy with me, Rogers. I’m calling it as I see it.”

“And I’m getting tired of everyone who I talk to about this telling me there’s something wrong with him.”

Natasha pursed her lips as they approached the tree down by the lake edge. It was old and misshaped, twisted roots rising out of the ground to coil back down into the shallow water of the lake edge. Steve clenched his teeth, shifting his gaze back up to Natasha. She was wearing long black sleeves again, tight all the way down to her wrists. Steve thought about why. What he knew was underneath that cloth, and forced himself to take a deep breath.

He’d only known Natasha for a couple of months, and she’d been wary and stand-offish for half of that, but Steve knew enough to know that Natasha didn’t waste effort speaking just to talk out of her ass.

“Okay,” Steve said again, reconcile in his voice this time, rather than warning. “Sorry I jumped on you right out of the gate. This is just…could you tell me why, specifically, you’re warning me about him?”

“I’m not warning you about him,” Natasha said, letting the previous tension of her shoulder relax minutely. “I said I’m worried about him.”

“Okay. Why?”

“You still want me jumping out of the tree, right?”

Steve blinked at the sudden change of subject, but let it go by responding, “Yeah, from as high up as you can get. And, I know it’s you, but if you could try and make the fall look as uncontrolled as possible, that’d be great.”

“No problem,” she said, already stripping off the long-sleeved shirt and then her shorts. She was wearing a barely-there two-piece swimsuit underneath her clothes, not for the sexuality of it, but because Steve needed her plummeting silhouette to look as vulnerable as possible.

He gestured at her arm with the camera he held in his hand.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asked. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

Natasha paused and reached with her right hand to trace her finger down the jagged red scar, linear down her forearm. Inside of the wrist to the inside of the elbow.

“I wear the sleeve to avoid questions from strangers, Steve,” she said gently. “Not to hide it from friends.” She smiled wistfully at the scar, and then shifted her gaze up to Steve face. “About Bucky. I’m worried about him because I don’t think he’s very happy. And I know he isn’t healthy. He does as he’s told, even by me, a stranger intruding in his own space. He doesn’t say no. He doesn’t have the energy.”

“Okay,” Steve said carefully, It seemed like that was the only response he had these days. His friends spoke articulate circles around him while he just stood still and nodded his head.

“I’m going to climb now,” Natasha announced, breaking off the moment and turning her attention to the tree. “Get your camera ready. I don’t want to do this more times than I have to.”

That comment made Steve fear that he’d maybe roped her into doing something she didn’t want to do – that she was uncomfortable with this after all – but he realized she’d been speaking in rote the moment she jumped out of the tree for the first time.

Steve had asked for uncontrolled, and she gave it to him. Her body plummeted in chaos, pin-wheeling haphazardly with flailing limbs all the way down to the water, where she landed with a loud smack that echoed out across the surface of the lake. It looked like it must have hurt, but when Natasha climbed back out of the water, her eyes were bright with enthusiasm.

“Need me to go again?” she panted, water dripping down her face and body.

“Yeah,” Steve answered. “A couple more at least.”

“You got it,” Natasha said with a grin.


	4. Chapter 4

Natasha dropped Steve off at his apartment and politely declined following him up to stay for a few minutes. She cited “things to do” and Steve let it go as he climbed out of the car. A quick glance behind him in the parking lot revealed Bucky’s car, so Steve marched up the stairs with a set jaw and solidified intentions.

As he climbed, though, he had to rest a couple times and remind his lungs how to breathe. Even though the stifling heat still returned some days, the season was rapidly shifting into autumn, and neither that nor the day at the lake were doing any favors for Steve’s lungs. He paused for a moment, outside the door, to wheeze his way back to coherency. He intended to have it out with Bucky, and past experience told him attempting such a task out of breath would only bring laughter.

When he did step into the room, he was surprised to find the lights of the living room on, and Bucky sitting at the kitchen table. He had a textbook and notebook open in front of him, but he wasn’t looking at them. Rather he was staring at a fixed point in the wall across from himself, spinning a pen around and around in his fingers.

“Bucky,” Steve began, the wariness in his voice audible even to his own ears.

“Steve,” Bucky said calmly, keeping his eyes where they were.

“How was your weekend?” Steve asked. It wasn’t anything near the speeches he’d been practicing intermittently over the last few hours, but it was a start.

That pen just kept going round and round.

“Kinda busy,” Bucky answered.

Steve sighed heavily and walked across the room to sit down at the kitchen table. He placed himself exactly opposite Bucky, hoping it would force eye contact.

“If you didn’t want to get coffee with me, you just had to fucking say so,” Steve said quietly.

That got the first real facial expression out of Bucky. His eyes startled, flicking to Steve’s chest and then up to meet his eyes.

“Hey, no,” he said. “That wasn’t…why would you draw that conclusion? I’m sorry that I kind of dropped off the planet, but sometimes school gets really intense all of a sudden, and I have to put my head down and just go with it. It goes with the territory of med school.”

Which would have made all of Steve’s concern melt like hot butter, but Natasha’s warning was ringing in his ears. It might have been disingenuous for Steve to assume, but Natasha had a habit of hitting the nail on the head.

“That’s totally okay,” Steve said slowly. “I just, I guess I was worried. I usually at least see you in passing at night. Didn’t mean to be weird about it.”

“No it’s fine,” Bucky said, then shrugged. “Just realize that it comes with the territory. I’m randomly unavailable.”

“Yeah, I got it. I didn’t mean to assume or anything.”

Long awkward silence, during which Steve tried to keep his breathing normal. Then, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say, “Do you want to get that coffee then? It’s not even nine.”

Bucky blinked in surprise and said, “What? Right now?”

“Yeah, right now. There’s always someplace open that’s serving coffee, and it’s good to take a break every now and then. You look like you could use it.”

“I can almost always use a break,” Bucky said absentmindedly. “That doesn’t mean I take it.” But his lips were tightening with consideration as he glanced down at the study material in front of him. Steve hadn’t had to take a science class in years, but the complicated diagram Bucky had sketched seemed like a nightmare. Just looking at it made Steve want to step outside for some fresh air. The feeling initiated a surge, half-instinct and half-pigheadedness, and he stood up, reaching across the table to close Bucky’s book.

Bucky jerked his hand back like the closing textbook was trying to bite him, but raised no verbal objection to Steve’s initiative.

“Come on,” Steve said, leaning bodily across the table. He’d practically climbed on top of it to reach the book, and that placed him firmly face to face with Bucky. He could feel his own heartrate jack up as proximity forced intimacy, eye to eye.

“I can’t stay long,” Bucky said, and Steve grinned cheekily because he knew he’d won.

“We don’t have to stay long,” Steve said, pitching his voice just the slightest bit lower. “Just come with me.”

 

 

***

 

Steve drove. Bucky sat in the passenger seat of the car and fought the urge to fold his knees up into his chest. That would consist of putting his shoes on Steve’s upholstery, and that would be rude. Instead, he picked at his fingernails and tried not to think about the last ten minutes.

Because this was a date. Bucky hadn’t been on a date since sometime in his first years of college, and that had been an unmitigated disaster. Like, “Bucky had gone in for a good night kiss and the guy had turned so it caught his cheek and then never called Bucky back” level of bad.

Bucky glanced over at Steve, who seemed unnecessarily focused on driving, and tried to keep himself from looking like he was staring, because he had apparently never graduated from the relationship level he’d found himself in during those first college experiences.

“Like what you see?” Steve said.

So, apparently, Bucky was emotionally fifteen _and_ not nearly as sneaky as he thought.

“Well, I think we’ve established that I like your hair,” Bucky said quickly. Then added, “And I expect you to return the favor on that particular experience. I demand to see what you’re like when you’re drunk.”

“Okay, first,” Steve said, grinning more openly now, “that’s not fair, because I still haven’t actually seen you drunk. A few drunken texts do not even begin to cut it. And second, are you already trying to get me wasted, Barnes? Awful presumptive of you.”

This, Bucky could do. The superficial flirtation - words without any real weight - he was good for. Hell, he was a master at this shit. Guess what the other person wants you to say, and then say it. At least dealing with his father had taught him _something_ useful.

“Can you really blame me, Rogers?” Bucky smirked. “You think I’m passing up the opportunity if I can get a hold of it?”

It continued like that. Meaningless but enjoyable social tropes, passing back and forth between them. Steve drove them to one of the many 24-hour breakfast places in the city (“We don’t actually have to get literal coffee, you know?” “I know.”) and they parked and went inside.

The place was busier than Bucky would have guessed, given the time and the intense “breakfast” theme of the restaurant, but they were seated quickly enough.

Once Steve had ordered coffee for them both, however, he turned and looked Bucky in the eye, and Bucky just knew that the superficial interaction was done for the night. Or, at least done for the foreseeable future.

“So,” Steve said, then smirked mischievously before adding, “Tell me about yourself.”

Bucky squared his shoulder in mockery of serious concentration and pitched his voice up about an octave.

“Well,” he simpered, “I like adorable animals, drinking in the rain, and long walks off short piers.”

Steve laughed, leaning back against the seat, but the targeted intensity didn’t fade from his eyes.

“I can imagine trying to drink in the rain might be pretty difficult.”

“You gotta put the drink in one of those Styrofoam cups with a plastic lid. Like, McDonalds cups. Then you can just suck down the vodka without worrying about whether or not you’re diluting your alcohol with rainwater.”

“Sure. Obviously,” Steve nodded sagely.

Their conversation was then briefly interrupted by the arrival of their waiter, who passed out waters and the requested hot coffees. Declining ordering anything else, they were left to their stalling conversation.

“Seriously, though,” Steve said - Bucky tried to keep from biting the inside of his cheek - “Tell me about you. I mean, I know medical school. And Clint says you study a lot, and we briefly talked about how your parents are living up in Manhattan, but that’s about it. I mean,” he gestured at Bucky. “Besides the obvious.”

Bucky considered making a the conversation sidetrack into “the obvious” and see if he could distract Steve for a few more seconds, and potential wring a compliment out of it, but he didn’t want to annoy the guy, and he figured he was already pushing his luck.

“Well, I double-majored in biology and chemistry. Minored in Russian.”

“Russian?” Steve said, clearly surprised. “Why Russian?”

Bucky snorted. “Because my freshman year, I had a really bad crush on this guy who was obsessed with Russian literature and film and just, it was honestly pretty weird looking back on it, but I got it in my head if the guy would date me if I learned Russian. Then, two semesters in, turns out I’m pretty good at it, so I kept it up.”

“So you’re a romantic sap and you’re fucking brilliant. Excellent. Tell me something else.”

“Nu-huh. Your turn.”

“Anything you want to know in particular?”

“Natasha springs to mind. She said you two met through Clint. How’d that happen?”

Steve shrugged and said, “You know I met Clint through Craigslist, looking for a model. Well, later I needed a female subject and Clint suggested Natasha, rather than putting up another ad. I accepted, because let’s face it, before Clint answered, I had been getting some more-than-slightly concerning responses.”

“So you pay her to model for you,” Bucky clarified. That still didn’t explain the self-possessed confidence with which she had navigated Steve’s apartment.

“Nope,” Steve said, with a weird little half smile. “I pay Clint, sure. Natasha refuses to accept any money. As far as I can tell, she does it for the fun of it. This is also why I’ve suddenly shifted toward female subjects in my work as of late.”

Bucky laughed at that.

“Sure,” he said. “I bet Clint is really grateful he introduced you two, now. Got his part-time job pretty much pulled out from under him.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure,” Steve said. “I’m pretty sure that Clint suggested Natasha because Natasha wanted to model.”

“Meaning?”

“Well, let’s just say that if you ask Clint if he and Natasha are together, you get a lot of ‘I think he doth protest too much’ from him.”

“No!” Bucky exclaimed. This was actually news to him. Clint had never mentioned Natasha, and Bucky hadn’t met her before last week, but it did explain why Clint had suddenly stopped casually hitting on every girl at the school who would give him the time of day.

“So, what?” Bucky continued. “You think Clint hooked her up with the modeling job so she’d go out with him?”

“Something like that.”

“No, I’m not buying this. No way a girl like Natasha goes out with Clint Barton. Trust me. I might not know Natasha very well, but I know Clint. I’ve seen Clint at his best and at his worst, and let me tell you, there is quite a range.”

“You know, he said something like that about you,” Steve said.

Bucky should not feel nauseated by that. Of course his friends talked about him. That was not an innately nefarious fact. He’d spoken that about Clint without the slightest malice or judgement, so it was entirely possible Clint had done the same. Likely, even.

“Okay,” he said pleasantly.

It had to have been pleasantly. If it wasn’t pleasantly, then this was going to fall apart before it started.

“You okay?” Steve asked, then winced with his eyes.

“I guess we all have quite a range,” Bucky said. Strained smile.

“Nah, I didn’t mean it like that,” Steve hurried to say. “Clint didn’t either. He was just talking about how medical school is such close quarters that you guys don’t have a lot of privacy, and that means learning a lot about each other that no parties really want known. He didn’t, like, _tell me_ any of them. He wasn’t talking shit.”

Bucky smiled again, this time more genuinely.

“So,” Steve said triumphantly. “New question. Why’d you get into medical school? Like, what was the draw?”

“I enjoy the potential for improvement. There’s so much shit in the world that it’s exciting to be able to contribute to something good. Something nice. I revel in the potential truth that someone will be better for having come in contact with me.”

This was what he’d put on his cover letter in his application.

“That’s actually…wow,” Steve said. “I’m not sure what I expected, but that’s a really cool way of looking at it. Would it be crazy if I said it kind of reminds me of why I chose art?”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, on one hand sometimes I think it’s more that art chose me, but if you force me to lay out _why_ , I’d sound something like that. Sure, a lot of my art has a message, and yeah, I hope that some of it makes people uncomfortable sometimes, but my goal is that people will brush up against it and come away better. Or, at least, happier. That I can put my soul in something and then, when people touch it, they’ll feel that part of me and be able to breath a little easier.”

“For the fuck’s sake,” Bucky sighed. Go figure the guy could take Bucky’s fumbling attempt at self-motivation and turn it into goddamn poetry.

“What?” Steve asked.

“Nothing. I’m just impressed.”

“You started it.”

Bucky nodded it contradictory agreement, smiling amicably.

“Next question,” Steve announced. “Tell me about home.”

“Pass,” Bucky said firmly.

“Tell me about some of your classmates,” Steve said, without the slightest concern or judgement at the dodged question. Unfortunately, that one wasn’t much better. Slightly better, but not much. Bucky hurried to take possession of the conversation.

“You first,” he said. “I demand to know more about Natasha. You said she doesn’t even ask for money? So she, what? Does it for the fun of it? What’s her income?”

“She’s a ballerina,” Steve said, and then opened his mouth like he wanted to say something else, but wasn’t quite sure what it was.

“Go on,” Bucky encouraged. “I know you want to say something else there, just say it. I won’t tell, I promise.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to say it,” Steve laughed. “Trust me, if I felt like she wouldn’t want me to tell you, I wouldn’t. I’m just not sure how to say this without sounding ridiculous.”

“I promise to withhold all judgement.”

“I think she’s a lot more than a ballerina. Like, she really can dance and everything, I’ve seen it, but she has a habit of doing things that don’t quite fit the persona. Like, she has way too much free time, but then she’ll disappear for days or weeks. Or, possibly more concerning, she’ll _do things_ sometimes. Stuff that normal people can’t usually do.”

“Give me an example.”

“Like, finding out where someone lives. Or breaking into your house while you’re away, but you can’t find any evidence of how it happened. Or getting things out of your pocket even though she’s been sitting across the table from you the entire time, and no one’s arms are that long.”

“So, what?” Bucky grinned. “You think she’s a master thief or something?”

“Stop.”

“Gonna join the next Ocean’s Eleven gang?”

“Shut up!”

“No wait, she _is_ the next Ocean’s Eleven gang!”

“You are mocking me for this, and it is not appreciated.”

Bucky knew he was lying, though. He was smiling too wide to actually be pissed off.

“Okay, so what about _your_ home life,” Bucky said, although that was stupid and could easily lead back to questions about his own. Although, on the other hand, Steve did seem like the kind of guy who wouldn’t easily go back to a subject someone had requested dropped.

“Growing up, it was just me and my mom,” Steve said. “Dad died a long time ago and, before you say anything, it’s fine. I’m well over it. Oh! Did I tell you my mom was a nurse?”

“No, you didn’t mention that. Good on her. Nurses are the only reason anything works within this shitty medical system.”

“Oh, she’ll like you,” Steve laughed. “Anyway, mom was working as a nurse at an ER and good thing too, because I was sick way too often to be able to afford all the doctor consultations. She used to bring me in with her and have to docs take a look and give her advice and shit. Write prescriptions. Bad enough paying for medication, so it was nice not to have to worry about the consultation fees.”

“Nice of them,” Bucky said. He didn’t know a lot of people in his class who would do the same. He thought he might, but then, it was always difficult to tell before you got there. What those doctors had done was technically illegal. They could have gotten in a lot of trouble.

“They liked my mom,” Steve shrugged. “Everyone likes my mom.”

“You take after her then?”

Steve blushed at that, his thin skin showing the color more brightly than most, and he ducked his head down to look at the table. He was grinning though, Bucky could see. So maybe Bucky was catching on here. Maybe this wasn’t completely hopeless.

“Shut up,” Steve muttered.

“Yeah, yeah. Seriously though, so you were a sick kid?”

“My lungs do not like me,” Steve said simply. “It was a lot worse when I was a kid. Asthma attacks all the time. Lung infection after lung infection after lung infection. I didn’t get to play outside much at all, because that would really set me off. Ended up homeschooled for a while, which was a joke because my mom couldn’t be home often enough to really do that. So I just kind of read a lot and tried not to sound like an idiot to my online friends, since I didn’t have any in real life.”

“Oh my god,” Bucky gaped. “That’s…shit, Steve. I had no idea.”

“No,” Steve said sharply, putting up his hand to stop Bucky right there. “I’m telling you this because it was a part of my life, but it wasn’t all I had. I had my mom, and I did have friends online, and I was lucky enough to be able to afford enough medicine that I didn’t die in the middle of the night in my bed. Okay? I don’t want you to pity me, or _doctor_ me, or anything. This is part of who I am, but it’s not the only thing I am. I don’t want to hear med school suggestion for me, and I certainly don’t ever want to hear you ask me ‘are you sure you should be doing that’ because I swear to god, I will kick you in the balls.”

“Very specific.”

“I mean it.”

“No, I get it. I really do. I’m your friend, not your doctor. I can be okay with that. It’s not like it’s a switch that’s constantly on in my mind or anything.”

“Okay,” Steve said, eyeing him carefully like he was trying to figure out whether or not Bucky was seriously listening to him. Bucky tried to keep his facial expression open and confident, and it must have worked because eventually the guarded tightness faded off Steve’s face and he repeated, “Okay,” only this time he sounded like he meant it.

“Well if you’re going to be all open with me, I guess I should return the favor. I’ve never been really sick or anything, but you’ve probably noticed I’m a little high strung.”

“It’s occurred to me,” Steve said, sipping his coffee demurely.

“Well my big confession is that I don’t think I like being in medical school very much.”

Steve just looked at him, waiting for him to go on, and Bucky rushed to continue.

“I mean, I don’t want to quit or anything” _lie_ “but it’s not really any fun. No one likes medical school, though. Everyone hates it while they’re in it.”

“Something you have to do in order to get somewhere you want to be,” Steve said.

“Exactly!” Bucky said triumphantly. “It’s just really lame along the way, and I’m not sure I’m good for it.”

“How so?” Steve asked.

Well, fuck. Where had that come from?

“You know,” he tried to dodge, waving his hand. “Studying and all that. I’ve been doing it for so many years in a row that I’m getting really tired of it.”

Steve just sat there. Waiting for Bucky to continue, and the lingering silence gave him the courage to actually continue.

“What if I can’t make it?” Bucky said. Somehow was even more frightening to say it out loud.

Bucky braced himself for the reassurance. For the promises of the future. For the “you're so smart” and the “you got into med school, didn’t you?” and the meaningless predictions of the future that would never give him what he wanted.

“Then I guess you’ll do something else,” Steve said. “What would you do? If you do end up failing out of med school. What would you do?”

_Kill myself._

“I…I guess I’ve never thought about it.”

Steve had switched from the coffee mug to the glass of water, and he was chewing absentmindedly on his straw.

“Maybe you should,” Steve said. “Give you something to hold on to if you’re struggling. It’s good to remember that life is intensely unpredictable. Hell, maybe you’ll get all the way through medical school, realize you hate being a doctor, and end up doing something else anyway.”

“It would just be so many years wasted,” Bucky said. It was the only thing he could think of to say.

“No, it’s not,” Steve said firmly. “Any time you spend doing anything at all is never wasted. You were doing one thing, and then you were doing something else. Don’t live your life like you’re trying to get somewhere. I promise;  we all die at the end.”

Bucky blinked.

“Sorry,” Steve laughed. “Am I being a little heavy handed? Chalk it up to me having too much time on my hands while I stared at the ceiling as a child. I spent way too long thinking of those years as wasted, but in the end, they made me who I am. That’s never a waste. Although,” he grinned around the straw he was still chewing on, “I bet med student loans are a bitch and a half to pay off without a doctor’s salary.”

“I don’t have loans,” Bucky said, then mentally slapped himself in the face. That wasn’t the kind of thing he liked to drop.

“Really?” Steve said, taking the straw out of his mouth and looking at Bucky. “Isn’t it super expensive? Clint said something about a quarter of a million dollars, once.”

“Yeah…I’m…my parents are paying for it.”

“Oooh, okay. Rich parents, huh?”

“Rich father. Well, stepfather, anyway. Not that my mom wasn’t well off, but Alexander’s the one paying for my school.”

“Alexander? Your stepfather? That’s nice of him.”

White anger flashed through Bucky but, without an outlet, it faded away again just as quickly. Like the adrenaline rush of being startled in a dark hall, only to turn on the lights and see it was a chair with a coat draped across it.

“Sure. Nice,” he said. Monotone.

“Not nice?” Steve pushed.

“He’s rich,” Bucky shrugged. “I think I hate him.”

“You hate him just because he’s rich? You know it is physically possible to be rich and perfectly nice.”

“No. I mean, yeah, it’s possible. I do know some perfectly nice rich people, but my father is exactly the type of person you should hate because he’s rich. He’s _that_ type of rich.”

Even speaking the words to Steve, who he was fairly confident would never meet his father, Bucky felt like he’d been punched in the gut. He shouldn’t be talking about his father like this. It wasn’t polite, sharing personal opinions like this. Gossiping. And saying nothing nice, too. He should tell Steve not to get the wrong idea. That his father had paid for a lot of things. Had taken such an interest in Bucky’s life, when he didn’t have to.

“Wait, sorry,” Steve said, interrupting the crashing train that was Bucky’s thoughts. “Is he your father, or your stepfather? I’m confused.”

“Um, technically stepfather, but they got married when I was really young, and he never liked it when I used the word. I grew up calling him my father, because he said that’s what he technically was.”

“Okay,” Steve said, and there was something in his tone that made Bucky reexamine what he’d just said.

“It made sense,” he rushed to say. “Calling him my stepfather created a lot of questions about things that weren’t anybody’s business. And I got used to it eventually. Honestly, I even think of him as my father in my head now. It’s totally fine. He did officially adopt me, after all.”

“Seems like people asking questions about that kind of thing would be your parents problem, not yours.”

There was a steely consideration in Steve’s eyes as he spoke, and Bucky’s stomach turned. He hated it when people got mad, especially about things that Bucky thought it was stupid to get mad about.

“Did you change your name? Like, did you change your last name to his?”

“That’s…a long story. I mean, I guess the short answer is no, but it’s kind of complicated. He...he didn't want me to.”

_Didn't let me._

“Just seems heavy-handed of him to care so much what you call him.”

“I didn’t mind,” Bucky said firmly, hoping to end the discussion. And then, when Steve looked like he was going to say something else, he added, “And I kind of don’t want to talk about this.”

Steve hesitated. Then nodded.

“Okay. So. Um, everyone in my classes is reading this book called “The Fatal Strain’ right now, and they won’t shut up about it. Seriously, everyone’s all ‘we’re going to die of the bird flu’ and they won’t stop. Have you read it?”

“Yeah, I have,” Bucky said, and his insides felt like they were being whitewashed with relief at the redirected subject.

“Is it scientifically accurate? Like, is there a sound argument there?”

Bucky grinned and said, “Well, sort of. He does have a few good points.”

“Oh my god,” Steve said, clearly not actually alarmed in the slightest. “We’re going to die of bird flu. God help us all.”

 

***

 

That was the last day for a long while that Bucky relaxed at all. This time, Bucky did at least warn Steve. He said he had an exam on Friday, and he wasn’t going to be home much until after it was finished.

“So, Friday afternoon, then,” Steve grinned, standing in their living room.

“Friday afternoon,” Bucky confirmed.

“It’s a date.”

After Steve ducked into his bedroom, giving Bucky a little wave and a grin before he went, Bucky did as he’d predicted. He put himself in lockdown. Driven by the panic of the approaching exam, especially one he knew he wasn’t prepared for, he managed to stick to his schedule, flying through the last few days of work and actually getting every lecture read and watched at least once.

He wondered briefly, where this kind of self-discipline was when he was trying to study on a normal basis. If he could harness some of it for the regular classroom, he might actually be getting somewhere with his life.

Still, even with the mad-dash insanity that created the Nauseating Blur of Medical School, Bucky still sat and clenched his teeth in the hours before the exam on Friday. Everyone around him was throwing “did you understand this one thing” questions around about tiny details that shouldn’t even be on this exam.

Except, if they weren’t going to be on the exam, then why did everyone seem to know the answers? These miniscule pieces of data that Bucky had considered so wholly irrelevant, were bouncing around him in Q&A form.

Maybe Bucky didn’t hate medical school. Maybe he just hated everyone he went to school with.

“Oh please, Brock,” in Jane’s voice, heavy with disdain. “That’s not going to be on the exam. I’m so glad for you that you spent the time to memorize that chart, but if you recall the email from the beginning of class, that section was ‘too detailed for this course’. It’s not relevant.”

“Look, if you don’t know the answer you can just say,” Brock smirked, feet up on someone else’s chair while he lounged in his own. “You don’t have to get all ‘time-of-the-month’ with me about it.”

Bucky’s eyes widened, and suddenly those two had the attention of everyone in the room. Jane’s usually pleasant expression had faded into a cold contempt, and her eyes snapped. Bucky shot a glance at Clint, they met eyes, and then both turned back to stare again.

“The answer,” Jane said, practically through her teeth, “is that it interferes with DNA and RNA synthesis via alkylation and protein modification, although it requires bioactivation after crossing the blood brain barrier. You want to ask me the potential side effects now, or just move on to the next set of drugs? Or would you rather see if I can spell them all correctly? Maybe you’d like me to write them out? You can check and make sure my handwriting is up to par with your standard for a woman.”

Brock’s mouth twisted up into an unfriendly smile, and he blinked once.

“Impressive,” he said. “Look at Dr. Foster go.”

“Not a doctor yet,” Jane said, returned to her own notes open in front of her. “But I’m flattered you’re so sure I’ll make it.”

Sometimes, Bucky thought he’d like to marry Jane Foster.

 

***

 

Forty hours was a long time to go without sleep. In celebration of completing their first few weeks of the school year, Steve, Sharon, and a few others friends from their classes had decided to turn Wednesday night into a horror movie marathon that had lasted the entirety of the night. They set up a projector and a PlayStation, lounging around one of the larger art classrooms and hoping they weren’t doing anything that would officially get them in trouble. Some of them worked while they watched, some of them just laid of the floor, and most did a mixture of the two.

When daybreak finally shoved it’s head in through the windows, most of the group broke off to shower and change clothes. Everyone took bets on who would keep it together and make it back to class in a couple hours vs who would give up and pass out on their beds.

“Is it good for you to be up this long?” Sharon asked, as they stumbled into the weak morning light. She turned and waved at another of their friends, then turned back and absentmindedly picked a piece of popcorn out of Steve’s hair.

“I’m not a toddler,” Steve griped. “Chronic lung problems doesn’t mean I need a curfew.”

“Don’t pick a fight with me, I’m cranky enough to take you up on it,” Sharon responded. “I’m not telling you what to do, I’m just asking.”

“I’m coming back for class today,” Steve insisted. “It’d take more than one night to kill my immune system.”

“Suit yourself,” Sharon yawned. “I’m going to bed. Have fun proving something to yourself, and let me know how it goes.”

Steve fought the urge to stick out his tongue at her retreating back, but he did have some pride, even at the ass-crack of dawn. He also realized that this would be the first time he’d have technically left the apartment for the day before Bucky, and yet Bucky would still have already left by the time Steve got home.

He sighed heavily and began his weary trudge back out to his car, fighting the urge to cough at the surprisingly cool September morning. He was starting to imagine that he could feel the weed pollen in his throat, regardless of how ridiculous that was. Fuck Sharon for getting in his head like that, even if she was just trying to help.

He sighed again, stifled a cough, and forced himself to admit that that was an ungracious thought. He was just pissy with lack of sleep and secondhand concern for Bucky’s exam.

His mood did not improve with the rest of the day, although he did manage to make it through all his classes, considering it a point of personal pride that he did it without snapping at anyone. The string of four letter words he thought at people didn’t count. They didn’t come out of his mouth.

Still, when he got back Thursday afternoon, he collapsed onto his bed in his clothes, and didn’t move against for almost eleven hours. When he finally awoke, Bucky had already long ago left for his exam. Steve rolled over, shot off a good luck text to “Bucky Roommate”, just in case, and shuffled into the bathroom to shower.

 

***

 

Forty hours was a long time to go without sleep. Bucky knew that. He knew it by the way his eyes were stuck open. He couldn’t even really close them. Couldn’t blink. He just kept catching himself staring straight ahead, zoning his attention away from the exam.

He sometimes thought he was falling asleep in those times. Little micronaps that sucked away the precious seconds he had to work on his test.

 _This is describing the symptoms of complete transection of the optic nerve_ , he thought to himself, moving down to glance at the list of multiple choice answers. He was startled to see “B) Marcus Gunn pupil” staring right back out at him. Weird. Questions were usually more complicated than that. The straight up ones always made him nervous that he’d missed something.

He glanced through the rest of the potential answers again, making sure they all really were as ridiculous as they’d looked at first glance. Then he mentally shrugged, picked B, and moved on. At some point, he was just going to have to hope his instincts were better than his actual intelligence level. No point in sticking around to reason it out when he was just as likely to be talking himself out of the right answer.

As the questions dragged on – was it really necessary to ask this many questions when they were always playing dirty and putting multiple questions within each individual question anyway? – Bucky felt himself losing his drive. In fact, for the last five or so, he really didn’t give a shit. He chalked them up for instinct, and then double checked to make sure there were no blanks.

Despite his sudden onset apathy, he did get an adrenaline spike when he actually clicked submit. He suddenly got a series of memories of himself – in startling HD – of every moment he’d slacked off since the first day of school, as he sat there, waiting for his computer to tell him his grade.

Loading…

He’d practically killed himself over the last few days, though. Didn’t he deserve this? What if it had all been a waste?

Loading…

He couldn’t feel anything below his knees, and where had this adrenaline been to keep him awake during those last couple of questions?

Loading…

God fucking _damn it_ , you’d figure a medical school could spring for some decent internet given how much tuition was and _if you fail you will kill yourself you useless fuck, do you understand?_

72.6%

Bucky hadn’t been as happy to get a C on something since his final histology grade.

Glancing through the ones he missed – he was way too exhausted to really look at them and see what concepts he hadn’t understood – he felt smug self-satisfaction that he’d apparently gotten the Marcus Gunn pupil question correct.

 

***

 

In retrospect, Bucky probably shouldn’t have driven. Then again, his other choice would have been to hang out in the mod room, and then try to explain to his classmates why he didn’t want to go out and celebrate the end of the first exam with them, and that he was going to sleep on the floor for a few hours first. Or, even worse, to actually go out to lunch with them while they all talked about the questions from the exam that they’d been confused by, or thought were unfair, or intended to whine about to some position of authority because they “wanted to get at least a 95% on this one, since it was going to be the easiest of the class” while all Bucky could do was nod his head and congratulate himself for knowing what Marcus Gunn pupil was.

He would laugh so hard if there ended up being a Marcus Gunn pupil question on his step one exam next year.

Instead of dealing with the potential horror of his classmates, Bucky packed his bag and made to leave. Most of the mod wasn’t back yet, so he almost made a clean getaway, but just as he was about to hit the exit, Clint came walking back from the exam room.

“Hey,” he called out softly to Bucky. “How’d it go?”

“I passed,” Bucky grinned, cashing in on the classic med school joke that the only thing that matters is passing.

_What do you call a med student who gets a C in all their classes?_

“Well, hey, that’s all that matters in the end,” Clint said back.  “Are you coming out with the rest of us to celebrate? We’re going to get tacos and do an unnecessary number of tequila shots.”

_You call them Doctor._

 “Nah,” Bucky said. “Besides, isn’t any number of tequila shots, an unnecessary amount?”

_Hello ma’am. I’ll be your doctor for the duration of your visit here, and I’m sure you’ll be thrilled to hear I passed all my classes by barely scraping by and managing to learn only the absolute minimum._

“Aren’t you in med school?” Clint laughed. “Sometimes, tequila shots are nothing but necessary.”

_Just passing isn’t good enough, James. I except better grades from you if you want to continue to have any freedom in this house._

 “Thanks anyway,” Bucky said. “I think that instead I’m gonna go throw myself off a roof.”

He was too tired to even glance back to give Clint the patented medical school “remember, I’m just joking” smile to go along with the words.

 

***

 

When Bucky stumbled in through the door, Steve sat up and peered over the back of the couch to grin at him. He was watching documentaries on Netflix and was prepared to turn the television off immediately. However, something about the drop-dead exhaustion that was hanging off him made Steve change his mind. He reached over and put the coffee mug he was holding (it read “What is a free gift ? Aren't all gifts free?”) and turned to give Bucky his full attention.

“Come sit and watch with me?” he asked.

“Sure,” Bucky said. “Why not? The lecture from after today’s exam isn’t up online yet. Nothing else to do.”

Steve chose not to take the ‘nothing else to do’ as an insult and pulled his feet up towards himself, giving Bucky room to sit on the far end of the small sofa.

“There was a lecture today?” Steve asked. “After an exam?”

“Yeah,” Bucky yawned, flopping down to sit. “Two hours of exam, and then two hours of lecture. Have to make sure we all have something to do over the weekend, otherwise all the gunners will lose their collective fucking minds.”

“Gunners?”

“Think ‘teacher’s pet’ but on steroids.”

“Got it,” Steve laughed. “Did you get my text?”

Bucky sat up suddenly, from where he was leaning back against the arm of the couch, and was suddenly right in Steve’s face.

“No?” he said. “What text?” Then, before Steve could answer, he started digging around in his pockets for his phone. Then he paused, confused.

“My phone’s still in my backpack from the exam,” he said, sounding immeasurably sad. He peered over the back of the couch, looking at where he’d dropped the bag in question upon his entry. “It’s so far away.”

“It was just a good luck text,” Steve laughed. “You don’t have to get up and get it or anything. Just sit and relax. It literally just said ‘good luck’ and nothing else.”

“Wish I’d seen it,” Bucky said, letting his gaze trail back to Steve’s face. Wow, he was close. This was easily the closest Bucky had ever been to him. Forget the way their faces were practically nose to nose, their bodies hadn’t ever been this close. Bucky had an unspoken “foot of personal space” rule that apparently went out the window when he was exhausted.

Steve could smell him. He smelled like coffee and sweat, and it was not entirely pleasant, but then Steve doubted he’d smell very good after a stressful all night study session either.

“How long have you been up?” Steve asked, trying to not laugh when Bucky blinked heavily at the Celtic design on Steve’s tank top.

“Took a nap Wednesday afternoon,” Bucky answered. “Woke up around 3pm.”

“You haven’t slept since 3pm on Wednesday?” Steve gasped, suddenly incredulous. “Bucky! Go the fuck to sleep. That’s like 40 fucking hours!”

“I’m gonna,” Bucky said. And then reached out to touch the Steve’s shirt. He took the hem of it in his fingers, rubbing the folded fabric back and forth while Steve sat still as a statue and tried to figure out if Bucky even realized he was breaking some pretty concrete social norms, not to mention personal boundaries. Not that Steve was complaining. He was just…concerned.

“How long was your nap?” Steve asked carefully.

“Like, an hour,” Bucky said, then seemed to suddenly realize he’d was touching Steve’s shirt without permission, his hand practically in Steve’s lap to do so. He jerked he hand back and opened his mouth, presumably to apologize.

“Let me guess,” Steve said quickly. “Before that, you’d gotten up at the crack of dawn Wednesday morning?”

“Yeah,” Bucky confirmed, still eyeing Steve uncomfortably. “Hey, sorry I just grabbed your shirt like that,” he added. “The fabric just looked like it’d feel cool. And I’m very tired.”

Steve pursed his lips together. For all intensive purposes – barring one nap – Bucky had been up since before Steve had gotten up for his own all nighter. Except, Steve had then slept. So, that was what, for Bucky? A double all-nighter? Something around fifty hours? Could you die from lack of sleep?

Unfortunately, the only one who knew the answer to that was currently eyeing Steve’s shirt like he was about to pick at it again.

“Okay, it’s bed time,” Steve said, doing the only thing he could think of and pushing Bucky backwards until he gave up and collapsed backwards onto the couch. It didn’t look like the most comfortable position, half curled up on the arm, but Steve figured it would do.

Sure enough, Bucky had his eyes closed before Steve was even done watching to make sure Bucky was going to stay lying down. Steve made a move to get off the couch, leaving Bucky a little more space, but Bucky made a noise of distress and half-sat up again.

“Lie back down,” Steve ordered, half-laughing and half-actually concerned.

“Then stay,” Bucky said, digging his toes in under Steve’s thighs. “You’re warm.”

Which was ridiculous, since it was 85 degrees outside and Steve was a cheap fucker who didn’t like to use the AC if he could possibly help it.

Still, he stayed. It was surprisingly difficult to say no to Bucky. He stayed until Bucky’s breathing lengthened in sleep, and then he turned the documentary back on. He stayed like that throughout the afternoon, until his own heavy eyes forced him to his own bed, although he did pause to lay a blanket over Bucky, just in case that comment about being cold had been for real.

 

***

 

Bucky woke up with a start and a shallow gasp, panting briefly in the dark apartment. It was silent, and moonlight was shining in through the gaps in the haphazard curtains. He was alone in the silent dark, and he wondered – for the briefest moment of hypnopompia – if he was dead.

Then the refrigerator’s compressor clicked on in the kitchen and there was suddenly sound in the apartment again. Bucky twisted his legs around, rubbing at his neck where he’d slept on it wrong. He shoved at the blanket that had been laid over him – had he fallen asleep with a blanket on him? – and struggled to his feet. He walked to his backpack and dug out his phone.

It was dead. Of course. He turned to shuffle back to his room in order to plug it in, and squinted at the time on the oven clock.

4:16am.

So he’d slept for what? Seventeen hours? The last hours of the horrible idea that had been a straight 40 hour study session had not treated him well. In fact, the memories between the exam and falling asleep on the couch were a little fuzzy, though he did remember having a short conversation with Steve. Hopefully he hadn’t said anything too ridiculous.

When he reached his room, he plugged in his phone and then climbed in under his covers. He was still in the loose jeans and t-shirt he’d worn to school, but it didn’t seem important. He wasn’t going to stay in bed long; just a couple minutes to get himself used to being awake again.

He turned his phone on, laying on his side and favoring the seizing muscles in his neck, and bit the inside of his cheek at the snapchat notifications. Against his better judgement – what judgement? – he opened it. As suspected, it was a string of incoherent videos from Clint, who was clearly drunk. The rest of the mod surrounded him intermittently.

Bucky put the phone back on the nightstand and turned to stare up at the ceiling. Maybe he’d get a few more hours of sleep after all.

Who the fuck had invented snapchat anyway?

 

***

 

“You look like shit,” Steve commented. Clint was curled up on his couch, with his face pillowed in Natasha’s lap as she pet his hair.

“I’m gonna kill you,” Clint mumbled, waving one hand in his general direction, without moving his face out of Natasha’s stomach.

“I think it’s more likely you’re going to throw up,” Steve snickered. “How’d that tequila taste the second time around?”

“Better plan,” Clint said. “I’m going to have Natasha kill you. Nat? Kill that guy.”

“Maybe later,” Natasha said sweetly. “Do you think you could keep down some water?”

“Fuck no,” Clint answered, paused, and then added, “Well, maybe. I can’t feel my tongue. It’s all dry.”

Steve watched Natasha maneuver her way out from under Clint, detach his fingers from her skirt, and walk into the kitchen for a glass of water.

“Coffee,” Clint called out from the couch. “Coffee, too.”

“Not a chance,” Natasha answered. “It’s a dehydrator.”

Steve had heard that somewhere before.

“Hey,” he said. “Are you guys sure it’s okay if I work here? I can always head back to the art studio. It gets so monotonous being in that room, but it’s not like I can’t get stuff done there if I need to.”

“You’re fine,” Natasha said, coming back in with the water. “Clint’s exaggerating his symptoms so I’ll be nice to him.”

“Not true,” Clint said, but Steve glanced at him as he said it, and there was a distinct amusement in the look that flashed across Clint’s face.

“All right then,” Steve said, setting down his bag and preparing to set up what he needed. He’d printed out the pictures of Natasha falling from the tree, but he needed to finished arranging them in the silhouette of a girl climbing back up over the edge of a cliff. He dragged a couple chairs out of the way and spread out the paper he’d be using at the background.

“Actually, Clint,” Steve said, “I was hoping to ask you something about Bucky.”

“Again?” Clint said, face first in the couch. Natasha had gone back into the kitchen to make him coffee.

“Shut up,” Steve muttered, then continued, “I was wondering if he’d ever mentioned to you whether or not he was potentially looking for a serious relationship. You know, should one come along.”

Clint made the effort to sit up and twist around to look at Steve, eyeing him critically, and Natasha hit the coffeepot against the sink as she was filling it. (Not an accident. Natasha never made noises by accident. Especially not noises as mundane as a coffeepot glass against a stainless steel sink.)

“Just wondering,” Steve said, trailing off lamely.

Clint looked at him for a moment, and then laid his head back down on the couch. Although, he left his face out this time, so Steve could understand him when he spoke.

“Bucky doesn’t seem to be interested in people at all,” Clint said. “Sorry to be a wet blanket, but not as a romantic interest, and sometimes not as a friend. I know I’ve told you before, sometimes it’s exhausting being his friend. Like the guy is constantly pissed off that you’re there. I honestly wonder sometimes if he hates me.”

“He doesn’t hate you,” Steve said quickly, and Clint snorted in almost-amusement.

“Good to know,” he said. “I guess I’ll keep trying then. I don’t want to abandon the guy if he just doesn’t know how to play nice.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Keep trying.” But then he couldn’t think of anything else to say, and the repetition just hung there.

“Why that question?” Natasha said suddenly, and Steve turned his head to look over at her, possibly moving a little to quickly.

“Just wondering,” Steve said.

“No,” Natasha said, drawing the word out like she was decided she was making sure that Steve was lying before she straight up accused him of it. “Why that particular question? Why a ‘serious’ relationship, rather than just ‘a’ relationship?”

“Oh my god,” Clint said, and Steve swiveled his head to look back at Clint again. “Did you go on a date? Seriously? And you didn’t tell me this immediately?”

“It was just coffee,” Steve said, but he couldn’t help grinning at Clint’s enthusiasm.

“No, Steve, this is great,” Clint crowed, hangover symptoms magically improving. “That guy really needs a friend that isn’t part of the medical world. It’s not healthy to be in that mindset all the time. You’re perfect!”

Steve glanced over at Natasha and felt his grin fade just a little. She had her hands on the counter, looking straight at him over the half wall. Her look wasn’t disapproving, but rather, considering. Like she could look into Steve’s memories and pick out enough data to form an accurate opinion. Eventually though, she smiled – it didn’t quite reach her eyes – and turned back to the brewing coffee.

Steve was about to ask her what she was thinking about, to try and get her valuable opinion, but he was suddenly distracted by a choking spluttering sound. He turned his attention back to Clint, who was now sitting up, water dripping around his face and down his shirt.

“Did you try to drink that while you were lying down?” Natasha asked sharply from the kitchen.

“It always seems like such a good idea at the time,” Clint pouted.

Steve put one hand on his chest and laughed until he was gasping shallowly for air.

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

The next week was not terrible, which was saying something. Bucky was doing his work on a semi-frequent basis and had not seriously considered driving into oncoming traffic in literal days. He would love to be able to say that his sudden capability came from some type of spontaneous internal motivation, but really he owed it all to Steve. (He was getting the feeling that he’d be owing an awful lot to Steve sooner or later and it was starting to form a heavy ball in the pit of his stomach, and Bucky hadn’t decided how it felt about that yet.)

“You got time?” Steve asked from the couch, pointing to an episode of Kitchen Nightmares. “Gordon’s about to yell at someone for serving raw chicken.”

“Okay, well if he’s going to yell at someone for serving raw chicken, then I guess I have time.”

“How much time?” Steve asked. He always asked, and Bucky could kiss him for it.

“Just the one episode, okay?”

“Okay.”

And Steve meant it, too. As soon as the episode ended, or they finished their meal, or it hit whatever time Bucky had decided on, then Steve made him get back to work. If Bucky didn’t, then Steve badgered him. Incessantly.

“Come on, let’s just watch one more, it looks like it’ll be really cool,” Bucky pleaded.

“You know what else will be really cool?"

“Is it 'me studying'?”

“You’re so smart.”

And then, with a dramatic sigh, Bucky would go and get his laptop, setting it up with his notes wherever Steve was or, if Steve was leaving, in the living room where Steve would see him first thing when he came back.

It felt good for someone other than himself to be making him study.

 

***

 

“Sharon, I need to ask you something,” Steve announced.

It was some time near one in the morning, and most of this particular class was still in the workroom. Their projects were due the next morning, and everyone seemed to have put off this one till the last minute. Usually there were quite a few people joining Steve in the pre-deadline all-nighter, but this was more than most. Which was ironic, given its simple instruction to “convey the passage of time”.

Or then again, maybe that was exactly why so many people were still in the room.

“Why are you announcing your need to ask me a question?” Sharon said, without looking up.

“Because I’m probably going to get mad at your answer, but I want you to answer anyway.”

“Oh, lovely. I love having these talks at three in the morning, especially before a deadline. Everyone involved is so relaxed and well-rested.”

“You’re making me angry, and I have even asked the question yet. You truly have a gift.”

“Ask your question, Steve.”

Steve looked down at his pen and twisted it back and forth between his thumb and forefinger before he carefully said, “Why is it that everyone keeps telling me something’s wrong with Bucky?”

“For fuck’s sake, Steve,” Sharon sighed, putting down her box cutter and looking Steve in the eye. “Let it go. He just seems really stressed out, and we’re all worried about you. It doesn’t help that none of us really know him. Chalk it up to overly-protective friends who think no one is good enough for you, and then move on.”

“But Clint seems worried about him, too, and Clint does know him.”

“Clint just takes it personally when people don’t want to hang out with him. We all know this. _Clint_ knows this. He’s working on it.”

“I know Nat talked to you about Bucky. Will you at least tell me what she said?”

“If I tell you will you shut up and let me finish my project so I can go home and get a couple hours of goddamn rest before we have to be back here tomorrow?”

Steve nodded eagerly.

“Fine. Natasha said he seemed depressed. Like “capital D” depressed. Like, past the point of valuing his own life, depressed. Watch him carefully, depressed.”

“God, I get it!” Steve snapped, drawing the passing attention of several students near them.

“Nice to see you were right about getting mad at me.”

“I wasn’t…that was…you were just _listing_ them off so clinically. And besides, I think you’re wrong.”

“You think Natasha’s wrong,” Sharon corrected.

“What?”

“That was Natasha’s analysis, not mine.”

“Fuck, fine then, yeah. I think Natasha’s wrong. He seems really stressed out sometimes, and he’s really busy, but that’s medical school, you know? It’s stressful. It’s supposed to be rough.”

“Clint seems to be okay.”

Steve made a noise of distress or anger – he honestly wasn’t sure which – and Sharon rolled her eyes.

“Steve, I know the guy seems fine. I realize that he’s telling you the right things, and saying the right words, and that if you do get concerned he reassures you, but do you really think it’s fair to judge someone else’s mental stability by your own personal definition? Is Bucky only allowed to be depressed and degenerating as long as his symptoms fit your preconceived lists?”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Steve protested.

“Medical students have one of the highest rates for addiction and suicide in the country. Some of that might be because of opportunity and stress levels, but a lot of it is because they are literally trained in how to look for the signs. They know the code phrases from people who drink too much. They know the physical and verbal symptoms of drug use. They know the sleeping patterns and the 'jokes' that people make when they’re suicidal, because they are literally graded on knowing these things. They know what to say to avoid detection themselves, down to a clinical level, because it is literally a science with them. Don’t underestimate Bucky’s ability to dodge concern that’s thrown his way.”

The two of them stood in silence for a moment, Steve staring down and playing with his pen; Sharon with one had on her hip and her eyes on Steve.

“How do you know this stuff?” Steve asked quietly.

“Because when Clint rambles on, I actually listen. Unlike some people. So. Now that I’ve given you my little speech, I have something else to add.”

“Okay.”

“You know how you feel when people try to baby you because of your lungs? Well, keep in mind that Bucky’s health is also his own. Don’t leave him in the gutter, but don’t go rushing in there like you’re going to fix him and make him all better, when you might not even be wanted.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?”

“Do you love him?”

“Sharon! We aren’t even officially dating yet! There has been _one_ date. Maybe two.”

“I’m not necessarily talking about the social colloquium. Not like you want to marry him and raise children or adopt a dog. I mean, do you love him as he is? As a person. As your roommate. As someone you might one day love in a different way altogether. Do you love him?”

“Yes,” Steve said quietly. “Of course.”

“Then that’s what you do. You love him.”

“Shit, Sharon. I’m not even sure how to respond. How do I even do that? Just…love him?”

“Well, I have an idea, but it might be a little difficult.”

“No! Tell me, please! I’m all ears.”

Sharon leaned in close, getting right in Steve’s face.

“If you want to love Bucky,” she said, “then tomorrow morning, tell him he can totally suck you off for breakfast.”

“Oh my god, fuck you!” Steve snorted, watching Sharon’s lips twitch in amusement at her own paraprosdokian.

“No, fuck Bucky,” she corrected. “Now shut up and let me finish my project.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Steve laughed, but even when he got back to work, he kept turning over what Sharon had said. She'd made it sound easy. Natural. The way his mom loved people or the way that little girl who'd been in the hospital bed next to Steve when he was nine had loved people. Somehow, Steve doubted it was as easy as they made it look.

 

***

 

“How are you doing?”

Bucky shot his eyes up to look at Steve, fork wrapped in spaghetti halfway to his mouth. He knew that tone of voice. That was Concern, and Bucky needed to be on high alert. He shrugged and shoved the fork into his mouth, effectively giving himself a few moments to prepare.

“And I mean that question,” Steve said, while Bucky chewed. “I’m looking for an honest answer. You said you had time to eat, so you have time to answer.”

Bucky smiled and nodded around the thick noodles that had tasted so good a moment ago and now felt heavy and sticky on his tongue. He swallowed, though it took him several tries to do so.

“I know you mean it,” he grinned. “You’ve got that look on your face. And honestly, I’m doing pretty well. I did better on that last exam than I thought I would, and I’m actually keeping up with the material. Maybe I’m finally hitting my stride.”

“You don’t go to up to the school as much. You study at home more.”

“Yeah, well you do, too. I wonder if those two things are related at all.” Bucky smirked and took another bite, twisting the fork multiple times so the mouthful was large, smearing sauce on his face as he shoved it in like a gag.

“So you’re really okay?”

“Yeah, Steve. I’m really okay.” _He knows something is wrong acknowledge that._ “I mean, I’m not gonna lie. I wasn’t doing so great near the end of last year, and then through the summer. Clint probably mentioned it.” _Give a reason that it's no longer relevant._ “I was getting really exhausted by the end of the semester, and being at my house it just not a healthy environment for me. I don’t feel comfortable there.” _Good yeah, tie it in to something he’s already worried about in your life._ “It’s good to be here, though. Med school is difficult, but difficult isn’t always bad.” _Redirect._ “Besides, you’ve been a big help, honestly. I’ve been trying really hard to create some healthy habits, and you’re really good at that. I’m sleeping enough, and you’re cooking me real dinners. Like, what is that? I’m eating real food! Who would have thought?”

“That sounds…good,” Steve said carefully.

“I mean it, Steve. I know I’m not perfect, and that I could learn to manage my stress better, but I’m doing really well. I worked hard to get here, and I’m proud of that.” Long pause, and then, “Why? Am I making you uncomfortable? I’m really sorry if I’ve done or said anything that--”

“No, no, you’re fine,” Steve hurried to say. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Um, actually, I was wondering something else, too. When’s your next exam?”

“Why?”

“I’m getting a group together to go spend the day at the lake, and I wanted to make sure you could come.”

“I’ve got another one this Friday, so this weekend would be perfect.”

“Jeez, this Friday already? They like to keep you on your toes there, don’t they.”

“You’re telling me.”

“Can I ask you another question?”

Bucky braced himself.

“Sure, yeah. What’s up?”

“Can I kiss you?”

Bucky felt the expression drain off his face as he looked at Steve in shock, another bite halfway to his mouth, loops of spaghetti trailing off the side and dripping sauce down onto his plate. He cleared his throat once, then again.

“Yeah,” he said roughly. “Yeah you can…do that.”

Steve was all smug confidence and triumph, his eyes crinkling as he carefully pushed his chair back from the table. He wiped his fingers carefully on the paper napkin by his plate and then stood. He walked, slowly, like he had all the time in the world, until he was standing in front of Bucky, all straight lines and bones and skin.

Bucky finally had the presence of mind to put his fork back down on his plate, just as Steve reached out to cup his hand under Bucky’s chin, tilting Bucky’s head up to look at him. Their eyes met, Steve’s still and confident and Bucky’s flicking back and forth fervently.

Then Steve leaned down, and kissed Bucky. It was short and chaste, just a press of lips between them. Bucky felt his dry skin stick for a moment to Steve’s lips as he pulled away. Then Steve smiled down at him, and Bucky’s couldn’t feel anything but Steve’s hand on his face. He wanted to nuzzle into it. To turn his head and kiss the palm and breath in its scent.

“Okay,” Steve said softly, withdrawing. “Lake. This weekend. At the very least, I’ll see you then.”

He ran his fingers through Bucky’s hair as he walked past, retreating from the kitchen down the hall to his room.

 

***

 

So now, Steve had to find people to go to the lake with him. Even though he hadn’t had any such plans, and hadn’t talked to anybody about it before that impromptu invitation to Bucky.

Clint, who Steve thought would be down for sure, stated that he was unavailable, and it was only after several minutes of pushing and one threat to show up to his apartment and demand an answer in person that Steve learned Natasha and Clint were apparently going away for the weekend.

Sharon agreed at first, but as soon as she learned that she’d be playing third wheel, she bailed.

“Don’t you dare,” Steve seethed.

“I am _not_ getting between you and sex on the beach,” Sharon had laughed. “Have fun! I’m going to need all the gory details, m’kay?”

Steve even called Sam and demanded he fly down from Washington to join them, which had turned into a three hour update on each other’s lives and no purchased plane tickets.

Which meant Steve was either going to have to cancel on Bucky, lie and say that everyone else had cancelled, or just suck it up and let it look like he’d promised Bucky a group event that had turned out to be an intense multi-hour date out by the lake.

On the other hand, he was having difficulty getting rid of the mental image of him kissing Bucky lazily on the beach, as the sun slowly set behind them.

 

***

 

“You got an hour?” Steve asked, sticking his head into Bucky’s room early Wednesday afternoon. Bucky looked up, and smiled.

“Give me another ten minutes, and then I’d love an hour break. You have something in mind?”

“Yeah, I bought these old printer’s cabinets on Craigslist and I don’t want to drive out into the middle of nowhere to pick them up without at least one other person in the car with me.”

“Got it. Okay if I bring flashcards?”

“You do whatever you gotta do, but you have to promise to put them away and look threatening when we actually get there, okay?”

“Promise.”

 

***

 

“How’d you talk Clint into letting you borrow his truck?” Bucky asked, as he walked out into the parking lot behind Steve.

“I asked nicely,” Steve said, innocently. “And then when that didn’t work, I called Natasha. Either way, the truck is mine now.”

“Geez, how big are these things we’re getting anyway? If you need the back of a truck, maybe you should have brought Clint along with his vehicle. He’s good at heavy lifting.”

“No dice,” Steve sighed sadly. “Natasha is less forthcoming with Clint himself than with Clint’s things.”

Bucky had a response on his lips, but it fell away forgotten as he watched Steve approach the driver’s side of the truck. Steve had to physically lift his arms up to reach the handle, and Bucky was just now beginning to realize the flaw in this plan.

“Would you like a step stool?” he asked, as Steve managed to open the door only to encounter gravity in the form of a first step that came up nearly to his waist.

“Fuck you!” Steve barked, making a valiant effort to jump. Valiant, but fruitless. Bucky came up behind him only to have, “Get back!” snarled in his direction.

“I’m starting to feel a little unloved here,” Bucky said, trying to keep a straight face while Steve pulled the seat belt out to its full extension and used it to haul himself into the driver’s seat.

“Get in the fucking car!” Steve yelled, and Bucky walked around to the passenger side, easily lifting himself into the seat, and it didn’t even strain his arms.

(Even though he hadn’t worked out once since leaving his father’s house. It was hard to make himself do when so touching the weights made him relive hours of punishing drills at the command of his non-optional personal trainer for non-optional daily gym time. He was losing muscle mass. His father would comment on that at Christmas. He should go to the gym. Fit it in between his night studies and his morning classes. Sleep is for the weak and the dead.)

“I'm going to have to talk to Clint about his life choices,” Bucky said in mock-disdain, pretending to look around the truck like it was beneath him. He cut off his own joke, though, when he saw that Steve was brooding darkly from where he perched in the driver’s seat. Feet not quite reaching the pedals.

Bucky tried to hold back his laugh, but he didn’t manage it for very long.

“It’s not funny!” Steve shouted over the peals of laughter. “Who the fuck needs a truck this big? I am going to have it out with Clint.”

“Will you just let me drive?” Bucky snorted.

“No,” Steve spat back. “I can reach. I can! I just have to stretch…a little…I can…see! Look, I can reach. Stop laughing; I can reach!”

 

***

 

“Bilateral loss of pain and temperature sensation in arms and flaccid hand paralysis. Arnold-Chiari.” Bucky answered from the driver’s seat. "Type II." Steve was pouting from where he sat with his feet on the passenger seat, but he’d still agreed to quiz Bucky with the flashcards.

“Intervertebral disc herniation,” Steve said.

“Which one?”

“I don’t know, they’re your cards, it just says 'intervertebral disc herniation' on it.”

He’d agreed, but he was still harboring a grudge.

“Just skip that one then,” Bucky said.

“Fine. Lower motor neuron lesion.”

“Easy one,” Bucky snorted. “Flaccid paralysis. Arflexia. Atrophy. Fasciculations and fibrillations. That’s poliomyelitis and Werdnig-Hoffman disease. Which is less tastefully known as “floppy baby” syndrome, by the way."

Silence.

“What?” Bucky asked. “Was that wrong?”

“No that was…you said that was easy!”

“Well, yeah. It is. That’s an easy one. You can figure it out just by thinking about where alpha motor neurons run and synapse, and the systems they participate in. It’s practically a review. We’ve been covering that stuff since undergrad when we first learned about skeletal muscles and shit.”

“What the fuck are fasciculations? That word has way too many letters. This is not easy!”

“You’re impressed,” Bucky smirked.

“I am not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“I am not, because I’m still mad. I’ll be impressed later, when I’m not pissed.”

“Deal.”

“Conus medullaris syndrome.”

“Put a hold on that one,” Bucky said. “I think we’re here.” He turned carefully into a gravel driveway, and Steve had been right to bring someone along. This was the middle of nowhere. Bucky but the truck in, turned off the engine, and yanked the parking brake into place, even though they were on perfectly flat ground. Then he climbed out of the truck, hearing Steve hit the ground after he jumped.

“Do we go knock, or what?” Bucky asked.

The question was made moot by a man in his early forties emerging from the front of the house. He was wearing loose jeans and a thin cotton shirt, and Bucky had never seen anyone scream “quiet country farmer” so much in his entire life.

“Y’all here for the drawers?”

“The printing cabinets, yeah,” Steve said, walking up and reaching out to shake the guys hands. “I’m Steve. I’m the one who emailed you."

"Greg."

"Hi, Greg. Now, I’ve got the $400, but I have to tell you, you could probably get that for each of them alone if you sold online or auctioned them.”

“Well, that’s awfully nice of you to tell me,” the man laughed, “but I’m aware. Honestly, I just want them out of my garage, and it’s worth it to me to just get them gone without any hassle.”

“Sounds good to me,” Steve grinned. “I’d love to help you out with that.”

Bucky watched the exchanged, and the money changing hands, with transitory jealousy. Steve just walked in and acted like he was friends with the guy, so the guy acted friendly back. Steve was probably the kind of person who could walk into a room of strangers and walk out with a room of friends. Like Clint, or some of his other classmates.

Maybe jealousy was the wrong word, though. Wistfulness, maybe. That was closer.

“I’m warning you,” the farmer continued. “They’re pretty heavy.”

“It’s okay,” Steve grinned, following the guy across the gravel and toward the detached garage. “I brought my own muscle. Say hi, Bucky.”

“Hi,” Bucky said. He was twelve and at his father’s Christmas party.

_Say hello, James. Be polite._

_More polite than that._

The guy turned out to be right, too. The cabinets were heavy, although Bucky wasn’t sure why Steve was so insistent on calling them cabinets. They looked like large flat drawers, for storing old maps or something else long and thin. Art, Bucky supposed. They were probably for large art, although he didn’t see why a flat canvas bag wouldn’t work just as well. Probably for the same reasons he’d never felt compelled to acquire anything other than a plastic tension rod for his curtains.

Bucky and Greg managed to get the first one up on the truck without incident. They tilted it up on one end and then tiled it backwards so its weight was on the edge of the truck bed. Then Greg and Bucky pushed and lifted until the majority of the weight was on the truck. Greg climbed up onto the bed and pulled, while Steve took his place and helped Bucky push the rest of the way. Not that Bucky could feel much difference when Steve started helping, but he wasn’t going to say anything. Not after the incident with the truck that morning. Instead, he just grinned quietly and kept it to himself.

“Round two!” Greg exclaimed, slightly breathless, as they prepared to repeat the process with the second set of drawers.

That one did not go as smoothly. Greg had climbed up onto the truck bed and was pulling, while Steve and Bucky pushed from below again, when Greg lost his grip. He’d been using friction to pull, not wanting to break the fragile drawer handles, and the sweat on his palms was suddenly too much. The cabinet began to fall.

It was going to crush Steve. Steve was standing more beneath it than Bucky – really putting his shoulder into pushing it – and Bucky had his hands closer to the corner. He felt the weight change. Two hundred and fifty pounds. Steve’s ribcage would break. Feather light bones and already chronically damaged lungs that wouldn’t survive the effect. Would have a low chance of resuscitation.

_Fragile epithelium. Extensive remodeling of the lung tissue._

Bucky caught the weight of the falling dresser with one hand. The sudden falling edge dug into his hand hard, sending reverberating shock waves up his arm while he shoved Steve hard with his free hand. The cabinet twisted on an axis, sliding off the truck and – when Bucky could see Steve was free – Bucky let it go. It hit the ground with a sickening crunch, just as Steve scrambled to his feet, and Bucky felt like he was going to throw up. He’d let Steve’s cabinet fall. It was probably broken; at the very least scratched on the gravel. Steve was going to be so mad. They’d driven all the way out here just for this, and Bucky had let it break.

“Oh my god,” Greg said, scrambling down from the truck. He was practically hyperventilating.

“Bucky!” Steve shouted, rushing toward him, and Bucky flinched, but all Steve did was take Bucky’s throbbing hand in his own. “Are you okay? Shit this is already really red. The edge caught your palm really badly. How’s your shoulder? Did that weight hurt your shoulder?”

“Sorry,” Bucky murmured.

“Sorry?” Greg echoed. “ _You’re_ sorry? _I’m_ sorry! I can’t believe I lost my grip like that. You okay Steve?”

“I’m fine,” Steve said, seeming surprised at the question. “Bucky shoved me out of the way.”

_What if I broke my hand? I need that hand. You can’t do surgery without a hand. You can’t break your hand._

“That’s a good friend there,” Greg said. “Holy shit, I can’t quite believe nobody got hurt.”

“Bucky got hurt,” Steve said, and Greg’s eyes widened in alarm.

_No, not broken. Deep bruising. It would hurt for more than a few days, but the feeling was coming back. He had full range of motion. No nauseating sounds of bone grinding on bone._

“You’re hurt?” Greg asked, stepping closer.

“I’m all right,” Bucky said. Still. Calm. “No thanks to you, though.”

“I…I, what? I know,” Greg stammered. “I’m sorry, and I--”

“Bucky,” Steve chided softly. “It was an accident.”

“He almost got you _accidentally_ killed. Forgive me if I’m not impressed with his apology!”

Greg’s mouth twitched and he look to the side. Bucky could feel the threads of his self-control shredding away as the latent panic and adrenaline coursed with every heartbeat. He could feel his blood throbbing in his ears _tachycardic_ and his eyes were filling with a layer of unshedable tears.

“If you couldn’t fucking handle it, you shouldn’t have climbed up there, you incompetent moron!” He was screaming. He could feel it in his throat. “If you think that--” His chest hit Steve’s open palms. Or, rather, Steve’s open palms hit his chest. Steve had just shoved him backwards.

Greg had one arm across his own chest, tight, and was rubbing his other hand along his arm, up and down. He looked closer to tears than Bucky had ever wanted to see an adult. And a stranger at that. He glanced down, in deference, and got an eyeful of Steve’s Righteous Fury glaring up at him. That was even worse.

_I’m losing him already._

“I,” Bucky said.

_Do something._

He took a deep breath.

“I’m really sorry,” he said, wrenching his eyes up to Greg. “Really. I…that was inappropriate and…cruel. I was just scared. I was really scared.”

The unshedable tears threatened to shed anyway.

“It’s all right,” Greg said. Gruff. “I understand being scared.”

“Okay,” Bucky said.

“Okay,” Greg echoed.

“Then let’s get this up on the truck,” Steve declared, apparently happy with the arrangement.

“Absolutely not!” Bucky snapped.

“ _I’ll_ go up on the truck this time,” Steve placated. “You and Greg push.”

Bucky tried to protest, and Greg even raised a few objections, but eventually they both bowed to Steve’s pigheaded recklessness. Fortunately, the new arrangement worked much better, and they did manage to get the second set onto the truck. Part of the bottom corner had cracked, but it wasn’t bad. It might stop the one bottom drawer from sliding out, but Steve still seemed thrilled.

Greg tried to give the money back, citing his own “disregard for safety,” but Steve just laughed and waved goodbye, grinning like he’d won something. Bucky followed him into the truck and started the engine.

“You’re not mad?” he asked.

“What?” Steve said, surprise and confusion evident in the way he turned his head so quickly to look at Bucky. “For what?”

“For losing my temper,” Bucky said.

“Oh, shit. That? No way. I’ve lost my temper plenty of times, and it usually takes me way longer to calm down and apologize. That’s what friends do, isn’t it? Back each other down. Besides…” he paused and then continued, “I’m pretty sure you saved my life. That’s kind of just now hitting me.”

“Just now?” Bucky said dryly.

“I’ve got a pretty shallow learning curve,” Steve grinned. “Give me time.”

He leaned over then, suddenly, just as Bucky was about ready to turn out onto the road, and kissed Bucky’s cheek. It was a quick peck, and then Steve was back in his seat, like he’d screwed up his courage and then done it before he could lose his nerve. Before he really thought it through.

“How about we stop for coffee and I’ll buy?” Steve said, in a rush. “To make it up to you.”

“Your life is worth one cup of coffee?”

“And that kiss! Don’t undervalue my kisses. They stand at a pretty high market value, if I do say so myself.”

“I know exactly how valuable your kisses are,” Bucky said. Only it came out warmer and sappier than he meant to, and Steve blushed bright red and shut up for the rest of the short drive to the coffee shop.

 

***

 

“It’s our first date all over again,” Steve smirked.

“We’re making a habit of this,” Bucky nodded. He wasn’t really paying attention to the conversation. He was looking down at the red line still visible across the palms of his hand. It was going to bruise deeply. Probably a bone bruise.

“Thinking about how I can make it up to you?” Steve asked, leaning forward with a grin that could only be described as lascivious.

“Oh yeah,” Bucky said, rolling his eyes. “I’m betting I can get a whole month of doing my dishes out of you.”

“You are so not catching on to my line of thought here,” Steve pouted.

“Oh, I’m catching on. I’m choosing to redirect, because I’m still pissed off that that guy almost killed you with a set of drawers.”

“Printer's cabinet.”

“Whatever.”

Steve’s exaggerated lechery faded into fondness, and he reached out to touch Bucky’s hands. Bucky loosened them, letting them uncurl so Steve could slide his own hands on top. Palm to palm.

“Thank you,” he said, ducking his own head down to keep Bucky’s gaze when Bucky tried to avoid it. “I didn’t say it properly at the time, but thank you. Needless to say, I’m glad you came along.”

“Never gonna let you go anywhere by yourself anymore,” Bucky muttered.

“I know. I know.”

“I’m serious, Steve. I’m going to be everywhere.”

“I understand.”

“Everywhere you go, you’re gonna turn around, and there I’ll be.”

“Like glue.”

“Yeah, like glue.”

Steve ran his fingers down Bucky’s palms, parallel, from the wrist to the fingertips, scratching lightly with his fingernails that always seemed to have paint under them. Bucky held his hands very still, flattening them as much as possible, and watched the movement intently.

“You really fucking scared me,” Bucky said. So softly. Softly enough that he could barely hear it himself. It caught in his throat like a repressed sob.

“Are you seeing this?” Steve asked, voice also hushed. But then he drew his hands back quickly, which was Bucky’s first warning that Steve had switched subjects. Sure enough, when Bucky looked up, Steve’s gaze was focused on something behind Bucky. Something back toward the door.

Bucky twisted in his seat just in time to watch a middle aged man reach out and flick the waitress' skirt as she walked by. He didn’t grab it, and he didn’t actively try and raise it, but it was clearly demeaning, and Bucky’s stomach twisted. He still hadn’t calmed down from the near-miss earlier that afternoon.

His hand hurt.

“That is so not okay,” Steve said angrily. He made a move like he was going to stand up, but Bucky put out a hand.

“Let’s see if she can handle herself first,” he said. “I don’t want to embarrass her if we don’t have to.”

“She’s not allowed,” Steve hissed. “She can’t stick up for herself, they’ll fire her.”

“What?” Bucky scoffed, slightly incredulous. “For what? Defending the right to her own person? I doubt it.”

“Wow, you have never sounded more like an entitled rich boy than just now, in that moment.”

Bucky drew his hands back off the table to the safety of his own body more quickly than if Steve had slapped them away. The motion was quick enough, and the reaction must have shown on his face enough, that Steve’s expression softened, and his attention came back to Bucky.

“Fuck,” he breathed. “What a thing to say to a guy that just saved my life. Sorry. It’s just…trust me, okay? My mom has put up with a lot of shit from patients she’s not allowed to say anything to without getting fired, even with the nursing shortage. I can guarantee you, this place does not value that girl at all.”

Bucky twisted back around, half to watch the girl, who was speaking calmly with the table in question, and half to hide his face from Steve. He didn’t want to give away the hot embarrassment that was spreading up his face and being called out like that.

Steve must have been right, too, because a moment later, the man reached out and put his hand in the pocket of the girl’s apron, attempting to use it to draw her in. The girl tried to put her notebook in front of her as a reflexive shield, but it was too small to be any actual use.

“Hands off!” Steve yelled, standing up. His shout was loud, and suddenly everyone in the place was looking at them.

Subtle.

Steve was already out of the booth and halfway across the room before Bucky had the presence of mind to get to his own feet. He followed Steve, a half step behind. He hated the feeling of eyes on him _god there are so many people_ but he’d just said he was going to stick to Steve like glue. He hadn’t expected the first opportunity to arrive quite so soon, but he wasn’t here to pick the battles. Apparently, he was here to follow Steve.

“I’m not hurting anyone, asshole,” the guy leaned out of his booth to sneer. The waitress took the opportunity to break free and retreat several significant steps.

“Wrong,” Steve announced, 90lbs of righteous fury. Consciously, Bucky knew that Steve could probably not take this guy, but at the same time, he couldn’t help but wonder why the man wasn’t at least a little intimidated.

“Mind your own business, prick.”

Oh. He had a friend. The other man hadn’t been visible, hidden as he was behind the partition separating the two parts of the restaurant, but he was visible now.

So, fair fight then. Steve against two men and then against the rest of the world, if it came to it.

No, wrong. This was _not_ going to come to blows. Steve would end up dead, and Bucky had just gone through a lot of trouble and one hell of an adrenaline rush to keep that from happening.

The two guys were getting in Steve’s face now, and Steve did not appear to realize this was not a good position for him. Instead, he was craning his neck up to look the closer guy in the eye. Hell, a glance down revealed that Steve was on his tip-toes, letting him get as in the guy’s face as was humanly possible.

“Why don’t you just fuck off and mind your own business,” the first guy sneered. He was wearing a light blue button up shirt, long sleeves down to the wrist, and Bucky would later remember that because of how the color contrasted so sharply with the dark red blood.

“A piece of advice you seem incapable of following, you misogynistic asshole! That woman is not here for your amusement, and she is certainly none of your business, so I repeat. Hands. Off!”

Bucky saw the swing coming, but he wasn’t close enough to stop it. The man hit Steve, closed fist, square across the jaw, and Steve went down faster than the cabinet from not an hour before.

Bucky saw Steve lying there on the floor. He would later realize that the waitress had screamed, that even the guy’s friend had been taken aback, that another patron had stood up and announced he was calling 911. But in the moment, Bucky just saw Steve. Hands braced on the floor with his weight on them and one hip. His shoulders were jutting back, supporting the weight of his body, and Bucky could see the line of his scapula through the tank top.

Steve breathed in loudly. A gasp. It ratcheted several times on the way in, as though Steve couldn’t quite manage it. Like something was in his throat, or his throat was closing up.

It was the last sound Bucky heard for a while.

 

***

 

 _Fuck_ that had hurt. He hadn’t been entirely sure the guy was going to take a swing at him, but he wasn’t really surprised. He’d had that look about him, and he clearly hadn’t been afraid to get physical with the waitress.

Steve braced his hands palm down on the floor beneath him and tried to get his vision back in order. The guy had clearly meant the hit, but he also hadn’t really know what he was doing. Steve had taken much worse.

His breathing was momentarily a problem – apparently he’d stopped somewhere between the fist and the floor – but he gasped deeply. It took a couple tries, but then that was normal, too. He jerked his legs to get his feet back under him and shoved off the floor to stand again. That guy was about to learn exactly how many punches it took to keep him on the ground.

Except, he’d forgotten about Bucky. Steve scrambled up to his feet just in time for Bucky to shove past him and lay a punch of his own across the man’s face. Bucky, like the man in the periwinkle shirt, meant the punch. Unlike the man in the periwinkle shirt, Bucky knew how to throw one.

“Oh shit,” Steve laughed, when the guy went down just as fast as Steve had. “You didn’t tell me you could fight!”

The laughter faded from Steve’s lips when Bucky followed the guy to the floor and laid down a second punch. And then a third. Steve was suddenly reminded of the townhouse, when Bucky had screamed profanity at the apologetic man who hadn’t been able to hold onto the printing cabinet.

“Stop!” Steve shouted. He rushed forward, to grab hold of Bucky’s arm – still rearing back for hits – and hoped the physical contact would be enough to stop him.

It wasn’t. Bucky’s elbow slipped through Steve’s fingers and hit him just below the sternum. Steve’s air went out of him in a rush, and he crumpled down to one knee. That did get Bucky to stop. Whether he’d come to his senses, felt the contact on his elbow, or saw Steve go down out of the corner of his eye, suddenly Bucky was there.

“Steve,” he said gently. So gently and so calm. His fingers brushed the hair out of Steve’s face as he struggled to take a breath. Any breath. He couldn’t breath and he was suddenly living in every moment of fear as a child where he'd suddenly realize he _couldn’t breath and maybe he never would again._

“Steve it’s a spasm, that’s all. You’re going to be okay. Just take a deep breath. One deep breath. You’re going to be okay.”

Bucky’s calm voice and steady hands contrasted with the blood on his knuckles, but it brought Steve back enough to draw in a sudden breath, loud and gasping.

Lots of people were yelling, now that Steve could hear something besides the blood in his ears.

Bucky dug into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He threw several twenties onto a nearby empty table, and then bent down again to help Steve to his feet.

“We’re very sorry,” Bucky said. Calmly. How the fuck was he calm about this? Steve glanced down at the man who was still on the floor, and that was definitely a broken nose. Steve had had enough of them to know that that was a broken. And bleeding. Blood was dripping onto that shirt, so at least the blood on Bucky’s knuckles wasn’t his own but this was still not good. Was that a broken tooth, too?

“We can’t just leave,” he said, but he couldn’t stop Bucky from half-carrying half-dragging him out the door and out to the truck.

“I need you to drive, Steve,” Bucky said. Calmly.

“But--”

“I need you to drive.”

Steve took the keys and watched Bucky walk around and get into the passenger seat. Steve climbed into the driver’s seat. Neither of them said anything while Steve started the engine, adjusted the mirrors so he could at least see a little bit, and moved the seat all the way forward. He did pause right at the exit from the parking lot and ask, “Are you okay?” but Bucky just shrugged.

He was curled up in a little ball, feet on the seat and head leaning against the window. He was crying, Steve noticed. Silent tears running down his face. And, as Steve watched, the crying changed from silent tears to spasmic sobbing that became so violent Steve wondered if he should pull over. But getting home was the only thing he could think about, so he just kept driving. Like they were just driving home together. Perfectly normal.

Had that guy even been conscious when they’d left?

When they finally pulled into their parking lot, Bucky had stopped sobbing uncontrollably. He was silent and still. Just staring out the window without the slightest flicker of an expression.

“I’m sorry,” he said, when Steve turned off the truck.

Steve waited to hear if there was anything more, but Bucky just opened his own door and began trudging toward the stairs.

At least Steve had finally figured out what everyone had been trying to tell him. Natasha, and Clint, and even Sharon. Bucky was not okay. He was not even a little bit okay. That had been brutal. Cold, clinical violence in the face of no defense.

Steve got out of the truck, carefully climbing down onto the pavement. Bucky was already at the top of the stairs when Steve reached the bottom, and by the time got all the way up to the apartment, Bucky had gone into his room and closed the door.

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took me so long. That exam week knocked my feet out from under me more completely than I'd anticipated.

 

 

Bucky managed to avoid Steve all through the next day. Logically, he knew this was something he was going to have to deal with – probably in court – but the rest of his brain decided that “in an hour or so” could extend on indefinitely. Hell, maybe if he went back to his old sleeping habits, he could avoid Steve for days yet.

He should move out.

_That is a ridiculous overreaction, deal with this like an adult._

Clearly Steve was never going to talk to him again.

_Overreacting got you into this, would you please try using something else to get yourself out?_

Or if he did, he wouldn’t have anything nice to say.

_Steve is a better person than you, stop projecting._

Maybe that guy was dead.

_He was not dead, you know what dead looks like._

Bucky was going away for manslaughter, or worse. Steve would have to testify against him.

There was a sharp double slap on his door. A slap, rather than a knock, because it sounded like someone had hit the door with their open palm. Bucky almost didn’t move to answer it. He actually decided to stay still. To force this off till morning.

He would never be able to articulate what, exactly, changed him mind. Maybe his subconscious had realized Steve had been coughing for the last two hours – had realized the apartment was suddenly silent. (Bucky hadn’t heard it consciously at the time. Steve would tell him later, that he’d starting coughing early that morning and hadn’t stopped.)

Bucky stood up. As he crossed the room, the slap repeated, only this time just the once. He opened the door. Steve was standing in front of him and – before Bucky could say anything – Steve took a shallow rasping breath. It sounded thin. Like someone had wrapped a scarf around Steve’s neck, and then pulled too hard.

“I can’t breath,” Steve wheezed, and then his knees buckled.

The bottom dropped out of Bucky’s world.

 

 

 

Bucky had hoped the first time he’d administer CPR would be in a hospital setting. With a bag, and several other responders. With a code echoing through the intercom. With a team, and an attending, and a emotional detachment that comes with the last breaths of strangers.

 

 

The scene is safe. Tap the victim’s shoulder.

“Are you okay?”         “Steve for the love of fucking god say something!”   “Open your eyes!”

Pulse?                                                 Okay yes there was a fucking pulse, but no breathing, definitely not breathing.

Administer the first round of CPR. Two breaths every six seconds. Is it still called CPR if the cardio parts of cardiopulmonary aren’t needed?

Bucky was never going to make fun of the school for making him take this fucking course. He was going to personally punch anyone in the face who ever suggested this was a waste of time for first and second year students.

No one tells you how hard it is to give breath to someone whose throat is closing up. He thought maybe it wasn’t tilting the head back far enough, but no Steve’s body was fighting him.

Bucky had never been so happy to find his phone in his back pocket in his entire life. He was never going to leave his phone out of arms reach ever in his entire life. He’d get a belt clip if he had to.

_911, what is your emergency?_

Two breaths, six seconds of trying to explain to the dispatcher, two breaths, six seconds of trying to explain to the dispatcher. Repeat. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

 

 

 

Strong hands pushing him off of Steve. He thought he should maybe fight them, but he was running out of breath. He went where he was pushed.

“Good job, kid. Really, you did a great job.”

No one ever tells him he did a good job. Who was speaking?

Bucky looked up into the face of a man he didn’t know. An EMT. How had they gotten in through the door? He was pretty sure it had been locked, but then maybe it hadn’t been. Bucky didn’t know. Steve had a bad habit of forgetting to lock it when he came in.

Steve had tasted like mint toothpaste.

He’d probably been asleep in bed. What if the attack hadn’t woken him? What if he’d just died there, in his room?

Why the fuck had he knocked, instead of just walking right in?

What if Bucky had been too scared to face him? What if he had ignored the knocking? What if he had crawled under his covers and covered his ears?

 

 

 

Once upon a time, there were two boys who stayed alone together in a cabin out in the woods. Late one night, they got a call from the local police that there was a vicious murderer on the loose in the area, but then the power was ripped out by a storm.

One boy decided to risk running all the way into town. The other boy was too scared. After he was alone, he pushed all the furniture in front of the door. It wasn’t long before he heard someone banging on the door and trying to open the windows. The sound was barely audible over the sound of the violent storm, but the boy could still hear that someone outside was yelling at him.

The boy didn’t want to die. The boy sat on the ground, covered his ears and screamed until he couldn’t hear anything anymore.

In the morning, when the storm had passed and everything was quiet, the boy moved the furniture and opened the door. There, on the porch, was his friend, who had tried to run to the town. He had been stabbed to death, just outside. His fingernails were raw and bloody from scratching at the door.

_Please please let me in. I’m sorry. Please let me back in!_

Bucky threw up in the sink.

 

 

 

“Are you okay, kid? Did you hear me?”

“You’re taking him to St. Josephina’s. I’ll be right behind you guys. I’ll follow him.”

 

 

 

“It didn’t even sound like a human being,” Bucky babbled. Clint was sitting next to him in the hospital waiting room, and Natasha was standing in front of both of them. She didn’t seem capable of sitting.

“I mean,” Bucky continued, “we’ve heard that sound a million times in a million hands-on activities, but it was always a computer. Or a recording. Or…or…..it was just never a _person_. People don’t make that noise.”

“I know,” Clint said, hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, though. Everything’s going to be okay.”

“Why do people always say that! You don’t know it’s going to be okay. That’s dumb as fuck. Everything will not be okay. Nothing has ever been okay, why would it start now?”

His leg was bouncing uncontrollably.

“When he struggled to breath in, I felt disconnected with reality. I looked at him and I half-expected to see dark purple-black rings of bruises on his skin. I saw that once. A woman, brought into the ER, whose ex had attacked her. He’d wrapped an extension cord around her neck. She died. She died and her mother cried, and afterward I got Chinese food on the way home and didn’t think about her again until this moment.”

Natasha finally sat down, placing herself on the opposite side of Bucky from Clint. She wrapped her arms around Bucky and pulled him forward so his face was in her shoulder. His arms went around her on reflex and he cried. He cried in a way that he hadn’t cried in years. Loud gasping screaming sobs that were more air than tears or snot.

By the time he pulled back, Sharon had arrived, seated on the other side of Clint. She smiled sadly, weary concern in her eyes.

“Long day,” she said.

Bucky laughed, but it wasn’t a nice laugh.

 

***

 

This was too much pain to be anywhere other than a hospital. Steve tilted his head back and tried to force his eyes open, but everything was blurry and god his throat fucking hurt. Then it hurt even worse and Steve gagged, coughed, and tried to sit up so he could vomit. All that happened was his head slumped to this side and he spit weakly onto the pillow.

At least he was breathing now. That was an improvement from the last moment he could remember.

“Sir! Can you tell me your name?”

This from the nice doctor framed in a halo of fluorescent lighting as he peered over Steve with clinical concern. Or real concern. It was hard to tell sometimes, especially when they’d so clearly given him something that shifted his priorities and made it difficult to do anything other than loll his head like Westley the Dread Pirate Roberts, post-resurrection.

“Steve Rogers,” Steve wheezed. His airway was still fighting him, but there was significant improvement. Enough that he could get his panic down to a manageable level. He let his eyes dart around the room until he found his heart monitor, and he focused on that, willing it to slow. He ignored the doctors and nurses and what he was pretty sure was a scribe plastering herself up against the back wall, computer in hand, eyes darting around the room.

Steve was too young to know what a scribe was. He shouldn’t have come to the emergency room enough to have that kind of knowledge.

Bucky probably knew what a scribe was.

Steve let himself submerge, half-asleep but breathing on his own, now that they’d un-intubated him. Nice of them. Waking up with a tube down your throat into your lungs is surprisingly claustrophobic.

He should have been concerned that he’d had an attack bad enough to warrant a tube in the first place. He hadn’t gotten that bad in years. But no, he’d assumed his cough was going away on its own – it never did, why did he think that? – and now he was in the hospital. A fucking hospital. Which meant, he assumed, an ambulance ride and a list of interventions a mile long and a fucking taxi back to the apartment, unless it was a time of the day that someone could swing by and get him. Hell, even if it turned out to be 2am, Sharon would get up and come get him. Or, hell, Natasha might be waiting outside like a valet at this moment. Maybe Sam…no…Bucky—

Bucky! Steve opened his eyes with a start, and the nice doctor pushed him back down with a hand on his chest and told him to relax and focus on his breathing.

Steve did as he was told, because personal experience had taught him he was not capable of dodging around and then running away from an entire code team. Not with drugs in his system. (Well, there was that one time, but that was probably because they hadn’t expected a nine year old to rip out his own IV and threaten to stab a nurse with it.)

 

***

 

“Steven Rogers' family?” the nurse asked.

“Close enough,” Natasha said, and he must not be in ICU, because the nurse took that as good enough, ushering them into a small room where Steve was sitting up and looking, against all odds, pissed.

“Don’t you dare,” Natasha snapped, before Bucky could even contemplate saying anything. “Sitting there, angry at the world, like you’re mad that you’re here. I swear to everything that if you give Bucky the _slightest_ shit for calling 911, I will personally beat your ass until you cannot remember your own name.”

“Thank you,” Bucky said, literally watching the anger melt from Steve, turning into a resentful pout.

“I’m pissed at you, too,” Natasha snapped, turning on him. Bucky withdrew a physical step. “I have to drive almost a hundred miles tonight just to _begin_ to deal with your mess from the coffee shop, and there is not an iota of a chance that I will forgive you until I have at least gotten back and had one calm interrupted cup of tea.”

“What?” Bucky said.

“Yeah, what?” Clint echoed, following it up with, “What mess? What did Bucky do?”

“Nothing,” Natasha said through her teeth, still glaring at Bucky. “Because I am going to take care of it.” She twisted back to point at Steve and snapped, “Do not die. I am absolutely forbidding it, you little shit.” Then she turned back, walking toward the door, nodding to Sharon on her way.

“Stay awesome, Sharon. See you Tuesday.”

“Wait!” Clint exclaimed, when Natasha was far enough out the door that it was obvious she wasn’t going to say anything else before she left.

“What?”

“No goodbye for me?” Clint whined.

“Fooling around in the parking garage wasn’t enough for you?” Natasha asked dryly, and then disappeared out the closing down while Clint’s ears turned a gratifying shade of red.

“For shame,” Steve chided, reclining back against his pillows. “This is a hospital. The parking lot is practically a sterile area. How dare you.”

“We didn’t…it wasn’t, like, completely…” Clint sputtered, and then scoffed, in sudden favor of silence as his defense.

It was all a little much for Bucky. Exhaustion was enveloping him, wrapping him up in thick layers, and Steve hadn’t said anything at all to him. In fact, Steve’s eyes had deliberately _not_ met his own.

“Are you mad at me?” he asked suddenly. He hadn’t meant it to be quite so non sequitur, but it did what he wanted. It brought Steve’s attention to him, even though it also brought everyone else’s. He could see Sharon considering him out of the corner of his eye.

“For what?” Steve asked, forehead crinkling up in confusion. “For saving my life?”

“No,” Bucky said. “No, for the other day. And…and I didn’t save your life.”

“Um, pretty sure you saved my life. In fact, I’m pretty sure you’ve saved my life twice this week already. I think that should get you a free pass on the incident at the coffee shop.”

“Someone has _got_ to tell me what happened at the coffee shop,” Clint muttered.

“I’ll tell you later,” Sharon replied, nudging Clint. “But I think, now that we’ve satisfied ourselves on the ‘Steve’s not dead or dying’ front, that we should go. Don’t you have class tomorrow?”

“Oh shit,” Steve said, struggling to sit up further. “If you guys have to get to class then go. I’m fine here. I’ll get a taxi back, or something.”

“You are such a moron,” Sharon sighed, shoving Clint in front of her and out of the hospital room. She stopped in the doorway, looking back over her shoulder at Bucky, and said, “Don’t you dare let him take a fucking taxi home.”

“I won’t,” Bucky promised.

Then they were gone, and it was just Steve and Bucky in the room.

“Look,” Steve said. “I’m really sorry about bothering you in the middle of the night. I knew I wasn’t feeling well. Pretty much knew I had an infection, with all the coughing and shit, and I just let it keep going. I should have done something myself way before I had to bother you.”

Bucky wanted to laugh. He wanted to laugh and call Steve a moron like Sharon had, but he was too tired. Wrapped up in too many layers of silent smothering exhaustion. So instead he climbed up into the hospital bed, careful not to displace the pulse oximeter clamped tentatively to Steve’s finger. He curled up into as tight of a ball as he could manage, his face pressed into Steve’s hip. At the feeling of Steve’s hesitant fingers in his hair, Bucky closed his eyes and wished he could fall asleep right where he was, and never wake up.

 

***

 

The hospital discharged Steve a few hours later. The physician had made a case for keeping Steve until his cough had calmed down a little more, but Steve made an case for his discharge by getting out of bed and putting on his clothes.

Bucky assured the doctor he’d keep an eye on Steve, citing his medical education, and everyone ended up happy.

“Anything you need to do before we go?” Bucky asked Steve.

“Nope. They already have my insurance and address and everything, so I don’t have to even think about this bill for days yet, thank god. That fucking ambulance ride is going to be a real kick in the balls.”

“Oh,” Bucky said.

“No, don’t you fucking dare feel bad,” Steve snapped, heading off Bucky’s guilt. “Natasha will have my ass. Now, where’d you park? I want out of here.”

 

***

 

Steve leaving the house was out of the question. Not because it was medically inadvisable, even though it was, but because Bucky proceeded to turn himself into Steve’s jailer for the foreseeable future.

“Can I not even go for a walk?” Steve pouted.

“Not until that lung infection clears up,” Bucky responded.

“Oh come on. It’s almost gone. I’m practically back to 100%.”

Bucky looked up from his school notes, narrowing his eyes so he could pin Steve with his most serious look.

“Okay,” he challenged. “Then take the deepest breath you can, and then let it out without coughing.”

Steve promptly failed this test, and Bucky settled back into his notes smugly. He was sitting on Steve’s feet – since Steve had shoved them in under his thighs – with his laptop perched on the arm of the couch and his notes in his lap. He’d been remarkably productive, during Steve’s “bedrest”. He was actually feeling pretty good about the material for the current unit.

That thought made him look back up at Steve, who had begrudgingly gone back to sketching.

“Are you missing important class stuff?” he asked Steve.

Steve shook his head without looking up from his sketchbook. “I mean, I’m missing some stuff in my gen eds, but it's not anything that's going to be unmanageable. I made it clear at the start of the semester that I might have some absences, and I’ve been emailing my professors as needed. As for the art classes, they’re used to working with me. Plus, one of them is doing some woodwork right now, so I was already going to be doing a separate assignment out of class for the next couple weeks.”

“What’s up with wood?”

“It’s more the sawdust that inevitably happens.”

“Oh, gotcha. So, no real problems then.”

“Well, I guess my US history professor is being a bit of an asshole,” Steve said, looking up to shoot Bucky a look of disgust. “I don’t know if he thinks I’m faking it or what, but he’s giving me shit about my growing number of absences.”

“Want me to beat the shit out of him, too?” Bucky said, and then felt his stomach drop at the thought that it was probably _way_ too soon for that joke. Steve looked up in surprise, and Bucky fished for something to say to alleviate the situation, until Steve’s mouth twisted up into an amused smirk.

“How about I sick student affairs on him first, and if that doesn’t work, then sure.”

“Deal,” Bucky said, looking back at his notes. He couldn’t refocus on them, though. The silence had suddenly turned awkward, and Steve’s pencil was no longer scraping across his page. A sideways glance revealed that Steve was staring at him.

“You know you can talk to me about that,” Steve said carefully. “Right?”

“I know,” Bucky said, clipped. “Thanks.”

“I mean it,” Steve continued. “I’m not…I’m not mad about it, if that’s what you think.”

“Just ‘concerned’, right?”

“Well, yeah. I think I have a right to be ‘concerned’. Are you going to give me shit for it?”

“You don’t like it when people are concerned about you, either,” Bucky shot back.

“And yet here I sit,” Steve snapped, gesturing to his position lounging on the couch, polar fleece blanket draped across him. “I don’t have to like it, but at least I accept the reality that people are concerned about me because there’s _something to be concern about_.”

Bucky didn’t say anything, staring at his notes without seeing the words. The awkward silence was back, although this time it was broken by Steve’s sigh.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said softly. “I’m not trying to be antagonistic, I swear. I just don’t want you to think that I’m avoiding the subject, or that it makes me uncomfortable. You beat the shit out of someone, and I want you to know that I’m perfectly willing to talk about it.”

Bucky took a deep breath and forced himself to evaluate the conversation objectively. Then he put on his sincere face, and looked Steve in the eye.

“Thank you,” he said. “And I mean it. I don’t want to talk about it right now, because I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about it individually. However, if I want to talk it out with someone, I will definitely come to you. I promise.”

Steve narrowed his eyes.

“What now?” Bucky asked wearily.

“You’re lying.”

Bucky felt his stomach drop at the accusation. How the fuck could Steve have possibly known that. His face had been flawless. The eye contact had been perfectly timed. He’d used the word ‘promise’.

_Stay calm._

“Why would you say that?”

“I don’t….I don’t know what… I guess you have a tell.”

“I do _not_ have a tell,” Bucky snapped.

“So then you _were_ lying?”

“I…I…” Bucky’s paradigms for evasion broke like cracking glass, slicing him with their fracturing. Tumbling infrastructure.

“I don’t understand why you’d lie,” Steve said slowly _oh god oh god oh god_

 “It’s not lying,” Bucky said dully, _you fuck up you fuck up you fuck up_

“You can call it whatever you want, but you’re doing it. I think you’ve done it to me before. If you don’t want to talk about it, then just say so. Don’t tell me you’re doing fine when you’re not.”

Anger flared hot in Bucky. Sometimes he felt as though he was only capable of two emotions. Scared or angry. Just, scared or angry. Life painted in binary, and he didn’t even know which of the two options was worse.

“You’re the one who keeps bringing it up!” he shouted. He closed his laptop, tucking it into his chest so he could hold it with his arms wrapped around his body. He shoved himself off the couch, ignoring his notebook when it hit the floor. He turned on Steve. Trapped. Animal.

“You almost beat a guy to death, I get to bring it up a couple times, okay?”

“Don’t throw that in my face! Don’t fucking tell me it’s fine, and then throw it in my face just when you need it to win an argument.”

“I’m not…not,” Steve wheezed, running out of air. He sat further up, suddenly, bending over to couch violently. Bucky felt his hands twitch and he wished he hadn’t stood up from the couch so it would be easier to surreptitiously listen to Steve’s breathing to make sure this was still just infection coughing and not asthma wheezing hidden in infection coughing.

“You okay?” Bucky said softly.

“Stop that!” Steve ordered, still choking on air. “This is not a chess move. Don’t let me being sick change the fact that you’re angry. Don’t you dare.”

Bucky threw his hands in the air. “Okay so now I’m not allowed to not be mad at you. Is there an aspect of my life that you would _not_ like to dictate, or should I just go ahead and assume you’ll be running my life in entirety?”

“Overdramatic little shit,” Steve muttered under his breath. “If this is what Sharon and Sam feel like when they’re dealing with my bull then no wonder they get pissy with me sometimes.”

The anger was fading out of Bucky. It always did that. White flashes like quick sprints that left him shaking and nauseous. Steve was mad at him. Why did he always make people mad at him?

“I just don’t want to talk about it,” Bucky said. His arms felt heavy. They pulled at his shoulders where they hung.

“There. Was that so hard?”

_Yes._

Bucky shrugged.

“Are you going to sit back down?” Steve asked. “I know you study better out here. You know you study better out here. Everyone knows.”

Bucky sat down.

“Can I kiss you?” Steve asked, and Bucky’s head shot up to look at Steve with incredulity.

“We’re having a fight,” he said. As though maybe Steve didn’t know.

“That’s okay,” Steve shrugged. “Fights happen. I don’t want you to think I’m actually mad at you. I’m just…’concerned’. It doesn’t mean I don’t still want to kiss you. It doesn’t mean I’m going to be mad at you tomorrow.”

“That is some dumb ass shit,” Bucky stated.

“You think?” Steve asked, lips widening in a grin.

“Yeah, I think,” Bucky said. He used his best unimpressed voice. Steve responded by putting his sketchpad on the floor and crawling out from under the blanket to put his face right in Bucky’s.

“You think this is dumb?” Steve asked. Bucky could feel the warmth of his breath, ghosting across from lips to lips.

“Maybe,” Bucky said.

Steve kissed him. Gentle, but long. They pressed their lips together and were still, breathing air around each other’s faces. Steve parted his lips the slightest bit, moving them against Bucky’s, and Bucky parted his own in return. Then Steve pulled away, keeping his face close.

“Still think this is dumb?” Steve questioned.

“Maybe not,” Bucky conceded.

Steve drew back to sit on the couch again, grinning in triumph.

“It is kinda weird though,” Bucky said. _Stupid just let it go._ “To fight and not fight at the same time.”

“Bullshit. Friends do it all the time. In fact, just being friends with Natasha is like being in a fight. Or, one time Sharon and I had a Fight. Like, a capital-F fight. We stopped speaking for days. Except I had a really bad night and I was not doing really great, so I called Sharon and said I needed her to come over, and she did and brought take out and we watched Friends and shouted mean things at Ross whenever he came on screen. And then the next day we saw each other in class, and we were right back to fighting. Took us weeks to sort it out for good, but that didn’t stop her from being there when I needed her.”

“All I’m getting here is that you’re a very forgiving person.”

“Then you’re missing the point. Friends fight. It’s going to happen. But if you value the relationship then you stick it out. I just want you to know that I’m sticking it out.”

Bucky couldn’t handle this. He shook his head.

“That’s not…I’m not…you don’t have to ‘stick it out’ for me, Steve. I’m not…”

He shook his head again, and when he risked a glance up, Steve was sitting very still with wide eyes.

“You’re not…what?” he asked carefully. “You’re not…worth it?”

Bucky just kept shaking his head. He couldn’t seem to stop. It swung the world back and forth with complete predictability. He could feel the weight of the centrifugal force on the sides of his head. The pull of the muscles in his neck.

Steve moved more quickly than Bucky expected, and suddenly he had a lap full of Steve. His notebook was shoved off onto the floor, his still-closed laptop wedged between his leg and the arm of the couch.

“You are definitely worth sticking it out,” Steve said. Declared it. His words were deliberately formed, and his eyes were unavoidable in their sincerity. They burned.

“Stop,” Bucky said. “Just…stop.”

“Not a fucking chance in hell. I’m here till the end of the line.”

 

***

 

Steve did let the subject lull, though. He fished his sketchbook off the floor, declared Bucky’s lap more comfortable than the rest of the couch, and refused to be moved. That was how Natasha found them when she walked in unannounced. Bucky had thought he’d locked the door, but obviously not.

“Say thank you,” Natasha declared, pointing at Bucky.

“Thank you,” Bucky said immediately. It seemed like the safest option.

Natasha didn’t comment on how Steve was lounging in Bucky’s lap, while Bucky rested his laptop on Steve’s stomach – _it’s warm, I like it_ – but she did take a heartbeat’s moment to take in the scene before gliding into the kitchen. Presumably to make coffee.

“Why is he thanking you?” Steve asked. He was not making a move to get up, so Bucky didn’t either.

“Because I have solved his potential problem with law enforcement over the incident at the coffee shop.”

“What?” Bucky asked. It was the only thing he could think of to say.

“Mmm,” Natasha hummed, pouring the water into the percolator and switching it on. “You might not know this James, but it’s actually illegal to pound a guy’s face in, unless you’re in imminent danger.”

“The other guy started it,” Steve said, from Bucky’s lap.

Natasha disappeared from view, bending down to get a coffee mug from the cabinet, and did not respond to Steve’s commentary.

“How did you take care of it?” Bucky asked.

“I took care of it by taking care of it,” Natasha said. “If I’d wanted you to know how, then I would have provided more information the first time around.”

Steve made eye contact with Bucky and rolled his eyes.

“Don’t roll your eyes at me, Steven,” Natasha ordered. “Do either of you want any coffee?”

“Please!” Steve chirped.

“Um, sorry to fixate,” Bucky pressed. “But I am the slightest bit concerned with this conversation. You took care of my problem. That sounds very ominous.”

“No animals were harmed in the making of this film.”

“What?”

“I didn’t hurt anyone. I solved your problem through almost entirely legal means. No, I’m not going to elaborate. If you have a problem with it, you’re more than welcome to find the guy and tell him to go ahead and press charges, but I’m not sure you’ll have much luck. Now answer my question.”

“What question?” Bucky asked. He felt a little dazed, and Steve was laughing on top of him.

“Do you want any coffee?”

“Um…sure. With cream.”

“I know how you take your coffee, James. Don’t insult me.”

This time, when Bucky and Steve made eye contact, Bucky was the one to roll his eyes. If Natasha noticed, she didn’t say anything.

 

***

 

The bill from the hospital came. Bucky was the one to pick up the mail upon its arrival, and he opened it in the parking lot. Which was stupid. It was illegal, especially for him. He wasn’t just opening mail, he was willingly violating HIPPA.

Somehow, he doubted Steve would turn him in.

The bill turned out to be for a few thousands dollars – _wow that is some crappy insurance_ – and Bucky felt a little relieved. He’d been worried it would be much worse. He sat in his car, running his air conditioning even though the September weather was cooling off quickly, and made a phone call. Fifteen minutes later, the bill was paid and when Steve got mad about it and threw a hissy fit, there wouldn’t be anything he could do about it.

Bucky shoved the bill deep into his backpack and climbed out of the car toward the staircase. He wondered, briefly, at the irony. He hated phone calls. They made him feel sick. He put them off and avoided them and shirked the responsibility whenever possible. But he’d just made that one without the slightest hesitation or anxiety.

If med school was teaching him that human bodies were dumb, then life was teaching him that human brains were dumber. Seriously, who was coming up with the rules for this shit?

The thoughts drifted out of his mind as he walked into the apartment and Steve yelled “is that you?” from his room down the hallway.

“No, it’s a serial killer coming to assassinate you,” Bucky called back.

“Well that’s disappointing,” Steve said, walking out into the living room. Bucky made a noise in his throat at the sight, because Steve was definitely not wearing a shirt and Bucky had not been prepared for Steve-in-only-boxers at three in the afternoon. That kind of thing needed mental preparation.

“Like what you see?” Steve smirked, because Bucky was being obvious, even without meaning to.

“Well, I’m not complaining,” Bucky shot back. “But if I’m going to get any studying done today, then you’re going to have to put a shirt on. Probably pants.”

“Fuck that,” Steve said. “You’re just going to have to learn to stop objectifying me. Focus on your work, Buck.”

“Buck?”

“Buck, Bucky, _James_. Dr. Barnes. Eyes on your work.”

“Yes, sir,” Bucky snorted.

 

***

 

“What do you want for breakfast?” Bucky asked, when Steve finally joined him in the living room late Saturday morning.

“Coffee,” Steve said, rubbing his eyes. “How the fuck do you get up this early on a Saturday?”

“Habit,” Bucky answered, standing from his computer to walk into the kitchen. “And coffee is not a food group. What do you want for breakfast?”

“Kisses,” Steve declared. Bucky put down the coffee mug he was holding – it read, “This day was a waste of makeup.” – and considered Steve, who was half smiling and half…shy? Was he blushing?

“Well, if you’re asking nicely,” Bucky said. “Which do you want first? The coffee or the kisses.”

“The coffee, obviously. Duh.”

“Okay, I changed my mind. No kisses for you.”

 

***

 

“Hey did you ever figure everything out with your history teacher?”

“Hm?” Steve said, clearly not paying attention. His fingers were smudged with charcoal, as was the white mask covering his face. Bucky hadn’t even known that charcoal made dust, but then, that’s how much he knew about art.

“Your history teacher. The one that was being an asshole about you missing class back when you were sick.”

“Oh yeah, him. Yeah, I sent him an email that consisted entirely of the school’s disability policy, and he calmed down a little. I’ve got it handled.”

“Are you drawing me?” Bucky asked.

“What?” Steve said, too loudly, jerking the book in even closer to his body than before. Bucky couldn’t believe it had taken him this long to realize Steve had been distracted and shooting Bucky furtive not-so-subtle evaluative glances.

“You’re totally drawing me,” Bucky laughed.

“You don’t know that!” Steve insisted.

“Sure. Whatever you say. I wanna see it when you’re done.”

 

***

 

Steve had to stay late at the school, catching up on some work he’d been putting off, since it had to be done on campus rather than the apartment, where he could sit in Bucky’s lap. There had been a couple of other students earlier in the night, but they’d left a little after one in the morning.

The building was quiet, and still. Steve knew there were probably people down on the ground floor, but up on the fourth floor, it was dead silent. When Steve shoved his chair out from the table, it scrapped the lacquered concrete floor. It sounded too loud, in a room without any other noise to drown it out.

“What’s a cute boy like you doing here all alone?”

Steve jumped at the sound of Bucky’s voice, and then turned on his heel.

“You asshole,” he declared. “You are not Natasha. You don’t get to sneak up on me like that.”

Bucky just laughed as he deposited a bag of fast food tacos on the table.

“You’re still an asshole,” Steve muttered. The food smelled good, but the short burst of panic had his heart pounding and his breaths lengthening, difficult to draw in. He bent down, dug around in his backpack, and shoved his inhaler in his mouth. When he was done, tossing it back into his backpack, he stood up to find Bucky standing with clenched jaw.

“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t think before I startled you.”

“Hey!” Steve snapped. “I’m fine. Don’t act like I’m not.”

Bucky visibly forced himself to relax. Steve could see the tension leave the muscles, letting Bucky stand up straight again. God, he was so fucking tall, why couldn’t Steve just _climb him_?

“I was just scared I was going to have to give you mouth to mouth,” Bucky said, climbing up to sit on top of the table. “It was gross enough the first time.”

“Oh no,” Steve said. “What a burden for you. To have to touch my mouth like that. What a horror.”

“Exactly,” Bucky agreed, nodding and not quite completely hiding his smile. “I definitely do not want to have to do that again. I’m not into that gay shit.”

“Ha!” Steve said, shoving almost half of one of the tacos into his mouth. He’d forgotten that he hadn’t eaten since lunch.

“What time is it, anyway?” he asked.

“About 3am,” Bucky answered. “I woke up and you weren’t in the apartment, and I figured I’d come bother you here.”

“How’d you even get in? You need a keycard at night.”

“I am a smart guy. I know how to get around needing a keycard.”

“Someone let you in, didn’t they.”

“Even better. I knocked and yelled until someone walking past let me in.”

“You would make an awful assassin.”

“You don’t know me. I did manage to sneak up on you after all. And I _am_ inside. Mission accomplished.”

“Mission accomplished,” Steve echoed, rising up on his tiptoes to kiss Bucky.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

Bucky did not enjoy standardized patients. It wasn’t the event itself, because pretending to be a real doctor interviewing a real patient was kind of fun. It let him get a taste for what would come when ( _if_ ) he finally graduated. So the standardized patients weren’t the problem in and of themselves. The problem was his group.

First was Clint, and that was okay because Clint was pretty cool 99% of the time. But he was a good guy, and sometimes good guys didn’t notice when other people were not good guys.

Then there was Jane, who was terrifying and whose very presence made Bucky feel like a complete moron, no matter what he said or did. Which was not technically fair, because she was very nice and Bucky objectively thought she was great, but she also had her life together and Bucky was tired of feeling like a fuck up.

And finally there was Brock. And Brock was…well, Brock was Brock. He always would be, and there just wasn’t anything to be done about it.

Actually, Bucky should probably feel grateful to have Jane and Clint there. Brock had to be careful what he said in front of them, because they wouldn’t let him get away with anything. Whereas Bucky would just clench his teeth and smile and echo words he’d heard other students say until Brock got tired of making him play catechisms games.

Sometimes he wondered if Brock was the only person in this school who knew how close Bucky was to the edge.

Which was just, the stupidest fucking most unfair shit ever.

The only consolation today was that Brock was terrible at standardized patients. He was fantastic at the inductive reasoning it took to get to a diagnosis, and he was great at memorizing the large sets of information he needed to get to a treatment plan, but he was shit at the interview. He could not properly get through all the questions to save his life.

“Okay, what’s the patient?” Clint asked, bouncing on his toes, trying to peer over Jane’s shoulder to read the clipboard.

“Thirty-nine year old female patient,” Jane read quickly. “She present to clinic complaining of a rash on her arms and pain in her joints.”

“Seriously?” Brock said.

“Vitals signs?” Bucky asked.

“They’re totally normal,” Jane said, shrugging and holding out the clipboard to Bucky. Bucky glanced over it and had to force himself to keep from flinching away when Brock mirrored Clint’s move and peered over Bucky’s shoulder at the fake chart.

“They’re not normal,” Brock said, pointing at the chart. His arm brushed Bucky’s shoulder. “She’s tachycardic.”

“I don’t think a heart rate of 102 counts as tachycardia,” Jane said dryly.

“The definition of tachycardia is ‘over 100’ and, I know we’re not used to doing math here, but 102 is actually _higher_ than 100.”

“She could just be in pain,” Bucky said, getting himself a glare.

“Some hospitals don’t even classify tachycardia until 110,” Clint added.

“Exactly,” Jane said. “And I’m betting Bucky’s right about the pain. They’re probably just trying to make that point. We’ll have to address it when we type up the chart, but I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Any further discussion was cut off by the staff member telling them to begin.

_Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines._

They all filed in, a little awkward line of four, and introduced themselves to the fake patient. Jane was the first to speak, smiling and getting straight to the point.

“So why don’t you tell me why you’re here today?” she asked.

The lady – whose chart had named her “Samantha” began her story, talking about the pain in her elbow that had started a few weeks ago.

OLDCARTS. A series of eight questions that you have to get the answer to if you want to properly bill the patient. Which was, perhaps, a slightly disingenuous thought. The eight questions were all extremely important starting points to the diagnostic process, not to mention how quickly they often reveal unexpected information, but Bucky still resented them. Resented the coding system. Resented the confining question-asking paradigm, inflicted on them by academia as a whole.

He should stop brooding and pay more attention. Jane and Clint were practically carrying the interview, with Clint easing the way via his quick camaraderie while Jane steered the conversation with her overwhelming medical knowledge. Brock was taking notes, writing quickly to get everything down, seemingly incapable of telling the difference between the important parts of Samantha’s story and the unimportant parts.

“Wait, I’m sorry,” Bucky interrupted suddenly. “Where did you say your pain was?”

“She said her right elbow,” Brock said condescendingly, pointing at where he’d scribbled it on the page.

“No, I remember that, I just thought you’d said your knee just a moment ago, Samantha. Where is this pain that you’re having?”

“Well, you know, it does actually move around a lot.”

Samantha, whose real name they would probably never be told, smiled just the tinniest bit, breaking character without even realizing she’d done it. Bucky always appreciated it when the standardized patients were so clearly on their side. They liked watching the students succeed.

“Okay, wait,” Jane said, her brow furrowing. “So let’s go all the way back then. When did this pain originally start? The very first time you felt pain in a joint?”

“Oh, that must has been two or three days ago,” Samantha mused.

“So _not_ this morning,” Brock said, the annoyance in his voice obvious. Jane and Clint both shot him looks, while the patient latched on to the opportunity to react. Sure they wanted to see the students succeed, but they wouldn’t make it easy for them.

“I wasn’t lying,” Samantha said, letting fake-anger into her voice.

“No, of course not,” Jane said quickly.

“Brock is just trying to confirm what you’re saying,” Clint said quickly. “We don’t want to get anything wrong. He’s just scared of misunderstanding you.”

Brock couldn’t say anything about that, although the glare he was shooting was not something Bucky ever wanted to be on the other side of. His grade was riding on this interaction. Not a large portion of it, but in medical school, a tenth of a percent can be the difference between careers, when it came to the competitive higher echelons.

Not that Bucky would know.

They did finish up the interview in time, though they ended up having to rush through the family medical history and parts of the social history. Clint and Bucky ended up doing most of the talking, especially since Bucky didn’t have to keep looking at his notes to tell him where to take the interview next. He’d always been good at this part.

Jane made a couple of comments when she clearly needed a certain bullet of information for whatever differential diagnostic she was running in her head, and Brock pouted his way through most of the rest of it.

At time up, they went through their close-of-interview routine, accepted the piece of paper the woman handed them, and marched back out the exit.

“Okay,” Jane said, “It says that upon physical examination she had a diastolic heart murmur.”

“Well that confirms it then,” Brock said.

“Yeah. Anything besides the ECHO?” Jane said to him.

“Diagnostic-wise? The strep test. She’ll have cleared it by now, but we don’t want to have to explain why we didn’t do one.”

“Good point,” Jane nodded. “I can’t remember, is IVIG in this hospital’s standard of care?”

“Oh shit, I don’t know,” Brock said. “I know that study showed it doesn’t shorten the disease course, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“I know right,” Jane sighed. “Gotta love bureaucracy.”

“What the fuck are they talking about?” Clint muttered to Bucky, and Bucky felt a rush of relief that he was not the only one left in the dust by this conversation.

“I have no idea,” he said back quickly.

“Yeah, I mean, anti-inflammatories, obviously,” Clint shrugged. “Rest. Watch out for something weird like decompensation or signs of chronic development. But, like, IVIG? The last time we talked about that was Takayasu arteritis, and I don’t know about you, but that patient was definitely not a small Asian child.”

Oh. Okay. So he _was_ left in the dust. He hadn’t even managed to understand the diagnosis was most likely rheumatic fever, until Clint had mentioned arteritis and he suddenly realized he’d been thinking musculoskeletal while the murmur had clearly been meant to point them to cardiac. Autoimmune.

And Brock had been right, too. The school probably had meant for them to consider 102 to be tachycardic. Probably had meant for them to consider that blood pressure borderline abnormal, too.

“You can’t just _not_ test for lupus,” Jane insisted angrily, as Bucky returned to the conversation. “She has a _rash_.”

“You just want to do a bunch of expensive rule out tests, when it’s clearly already gotten into her mitral valve. If we do anything we should do a biopsy. Rule out endocarditis.”

“That is so typical of you,” Jane sighed. “You’re willing to put the patient’s life at risk with a biopsy of an _injured heart_ , but you’re worried about the hospital costs associated with routine lab work.”

“It is not a real patient!” Brock insisted, gesturing with his hands.

“They why don’t you want the fucking bloodwork?”

“I want _some_ bloodwork; I just don’t want every test you wrote down there in your notes. Yeah, I see those. That is a ridiculous number of tests.”

“I’m being thorough,” Jane defended, drawing her notes in closer to herself.

“You’re ramping up the patient’s bill just to cover your ass,” Brock shot back.

“Wow,” Clint murmured in Bucky’s ear. “They are really making me feel inferior. It’s like we’re not even here.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. Then he echoed himself, softly. “Yeah.”

 

***

 

“You doing okay?”

_God, that fucking question._

“I’m okay,” Bucky said. “Thanks for asking.”

After Jane and Brock had calmed down enough to be moved, they’d all headed to the library to write up their note. Brock and Jane managed to agree on a moderate diagnostic evaluation, and implement a suggested treatment plan. Jane had submitted their work, and everyone had headed their separate ways. Brock and Clint bailed out pretty quickly, and Bucky was slowly packing up his books while Jane stood next to him. Waiting for him. Polite.

And asking that fucking question.

“I’m really am all right,” Bucky emphasized. “A little stressed, but sometimes that’s good, you know? Motivating.”

“In small doses,” Jane said. “Sorry it got a little intense there. I know Brock and I go at it, and it doesn’t help that we both think it’s fun.”

“That was fun?” Bucky asked incredulously.

“If you’re as type-A as we are, then yeah. Brock can be an asshole a lot of the time, but he’s going to be a great doctor. He’s got the head for it.”

“Yeah he’ll be a great doctor,” Bucky said. “Assuming he goes into a field where he never has to talk to a patient ever. Not once. Zero patient interaction.”

“Stay at home radiologist,” Jane laughed.

“Exactly,” Bucky said, swinging his backpack up onto his shoulder, following Jane toward the elevators. “He’d like that, too. It pays well.”

“Oh shit,” Jane gaped, and Bucky felt his stomach drop. He hadn’t meant to say that bit out loud. Sometimes he couldn’t keep track of what his classmates considered acceptable shit talking and shit talking that went too far.

“Sorry,” he apologized reflexively. “That was mean.”

“You really don’t like him,” Jane said, considering.

Bucky shrugged, reaching out to push the elevator call button. It didn’t light up on this floor. It had broken before Bucky had even enrolled.

“I don’t spend enough time at the school to really get a feel for everyone in the class,” Jane said. “So I’m not telling you that you’re wrong, but I am asking why? Why don’t you like him?”

“He’s fine,” Bucky said.

“Oh please, Bucky,” Jane scoffed. “I’ve taken psych, too, you know. I know an evasion when I see one.”

“He’s just an asshole, okay,” Bucky conceded. The elevator had arrived, and they stepped in. “Not all the time or anything. And you’re right that he’ll make a great doctor. You and Bruce are pretty much the only ones in the class that are on his level. But I just don’t understand why he has to be an asshole.”

“Well, if you say he’s an asshole then he’s an asshole. I’ll be less forgiving of him when he does asshole things from now on.”

“What? Why? You don’t have to do that just cause I have personal issues with the guy.”

“Bucky, please,” Jane laughed. The elevator doors opened and she walked through, Bucky following behind. “If you don’t like someone, it’s probably because they don’t deserve to be liked. I know we haven’t had a lot of time to hang out or study together, but it didn’t take our mod long to figure out you’re the intuition of the group.”

“I’m what?” They’d stopped, just outside the library, having parked in opposite parking lots, waiting on a lull in the conversation to let them separate.

“You’re the intuition,” Jane repeated. “Brock and I might be able to recite every drug that’s FDA approved by the time we hit third year, but you’re the doctor who will notice that the patient is being abused by her husband without her having to say it. You’re the one who will ask that one question that no one else in the group had even thought of. You and Clint and Jessica and the others like you. Brock and I will walk out of interview rooms with a list of differential diagnoses, but you’ll walk out with your patients trust. And that’s worth a lot more.”

“Shit, Jane. I don’t…I’m not even sure how to respond to this.”

“You don’t have to respond. Just take it to heart. You might be stressed out by all the work it will take to get ready for step, but don’t think you’re the only one out there that’s having to work hard. We all have our weaknesses. Every one of us. And we all have our strengths. Yours is your heart, and it’s going to make a great doctor out of you.”

Jane smiled at him warmly, and the brief silence that followed was just on the right side of awkward. Then Jane shrugged, and waved at him.

“Anyway,” she said. “I’m parked on the other side. I’ll see you Friday for the exam.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said, beginning to walk away. “Kill me now.”

“I know, right? But don’t forget,” Jane called back as she withdrew. “You have the heart. You’ve got this!”

“Yeah,” Bucky muttered to himself. “Right. Because my patients will be happy to die from diseases I’m not good enough to diagnose, as long as I’m a nice doctor.”

He smiled and waved cheerfully at Jane’s retreating figure as he said it.

 

***

 

“Steve!” Bucky yelled. He was only halfway up the stairs to the apartment, panting heavily with the exertion of sprinting from the car _god you have really been letting your flabby ass go haven’t you_ and brimming with excitement. Enough that he was screaming Steve’s name on the outside staircase.

“Steve!” he yelled again, rounding the final turn up to the last half flight. “Steeeeeve!”

Just as he reached the door to the apartment, it was flung open but a wide-eyed Steve in an black oversized tank top and dark jeans.

“Who died?” he said, grip tight on the door.

“No one died,” Bucky crowed. “Well I’m sure someone died, but no one we know so who gives a shit.”

“You are really endearing us to the neighbors,” Steve said dryly, quickly calming down in the face of Bucky’s obvious elation. “Why are you screaming?”

“I had my second exam today, remember?”

“Oh!” Steve said, suddenly interested again. He stepped back into the apartment, drawing Bucky with him. “How’d it go? I mean, assume it went well?”

“It went very well. It went _so_ well. It went well enough that I don’t even have to pass the final next week, in order to pass the class. Do you know how long it’s been since I didn’t need to pass a final?”

“What, last class?” Steve scoffed. “Come on, Buck. Don’t think I don’t know you’re fucking brilliant.”

That took some of the wind out of Bucky’s sails for a split second, but there was too much momentum for it to make enough of a dent that Steve noticed.

“Don’t be a punk,” Bucky scoffed. “Just celebrate with me.”

“How are we celebrating?”

Bucky ducked down and kissed Steve. Like, really kissed him this time. Even their more adventurous attempts on the couch had been more closed lip than not. Gentle and soft dry kisses. This time, Bucky got his tongue behind Steve’s teeth before Steve could even get his hands in Bucky’s hair.

“Hell, yes,” Steve said, although it was barely intelligible with his mouth full of Bucky. He jumped, literally jumped, into Bucky’s arms, legs wrapped tight about Bucky’s waist, and they both nearly went down with the change in center of gravity. Bucky still had some muscle left from summer though, and he wrapped his arms around Steve’s thighs and changed his leverage.

That wasn’t very fair though, because Steve suddenly the advantage. He had both hands, and they were gripping Bucky’s hair tightly – _your boyfriend probably appreciates the hand hold_ – so Bucky walked forward so he could round the corner into the kitchen and place Steve on the counter. That way, both of them had full use of their hands.

Bucky cupped his hand around the back of Steve’s neck, rubbing his thumb back and forth in the short hairs at his nape and he was suddenly laughing. It started as a soft shaking in his chest and shoulders, but then he was laughing into Steve’s mouth, heavy breaths breaking apart their kiss, just for them to rejoin it every couple of moments. Again and again and again, turning this sloppy frantic kiss into a flurry of little micro-kisses.

“What?” Steve asked, starting to laugh, too. “What’s so funny?”

“I have no idea,” Bucky panted. He pressed in closer so his hips were slotted more firmly between Steve’s legs. Then he took advantage of Steve technically being momentarily taller than him, and began to suck bruises into Steve’s neck.

“Oh shit,” Steve laughed. “Bucky! I wear like 99% tank tops at school.”

“Oh no,” Bucky said, skin between his teeth. “How terrible for you. Gonna have to wear a real shirt.” He moved to a new spot, close to the blue vein he could see running down Steve’s neck. “Gonna have to dress like an adult. Gonna have to hide your big secret.” He pulled back and kissed Steve once on the nose. “Or worse, you’re going to have to educate the senior college art class as to what a hickey is.”

“Jerk,” Steve muttered.

Bucky kissed him on the nose again. Then on his lips – a quick peck that Steve tried to follow him from. Then another series of kisses on Steve’s neck while Steve reached around Bucky and shoved his hand up underneath Bucky’s shirt. His nails were sharp as they dug into Bucky’s back.

Bucky sank down to his knees, letting the hand underneath his shirt pull it up and over his head. Steve let it fall onto the floor next to them, and Bucky couldn’t even feel the ungiving flatness of the floor underneath his knees.

“Okay?” he panted, reaching up to tug roughly at Steve’s waistband.

“Fuck yes!” Steve said enthusiastically. He almost fell sideways off the counter trying to comply with Bucky’s request, but they managed in the end.

“You sure you don’t want to move to a chair or something. That doesn’t look comfortable for your neck.”

“All the better to deep throat with,” Bucky said, winking at Steve.

Steve opened his mouth to make his own witty reply, but Bucky quickly shut him up.

 

***

 

“So now what?” Steve asked, tangled up with Bucky on the couch. They had a blanket wrapped around their legs, but it had mostly spilled off onto the floor.

“I assume that I leave for school tomorrow and you promptly call all of your friends, put them on conference call, and give a step by step.”

“God, no,” Steve laughed. “Natasha would be so unimpressed, and Sam would hang up. Sharon would put me on speaker to get back at me.”

“Yeah, that wouldn’t surprise me at all,” Bucky laughed. He was curled up on his side, back against the back of the couch, and Steve was on his stomach in front of him. Steve’s arms were tucked in underneath him, pillowing his head as he looked at Bucky.

“But you’re, like, okay with this, right?”

“God, Steve, shut up.”

“No, it was great, but it was just so spontaneous? I didn’t really see it coming today.”

“There has got to be a cumming joke in there somewhere,” Bucky said, shit-eating grin curling up his face.

“Shut the fuck up,” Steve muttered, kicking halfheartedly at Bucky. Bucky just smiled down as Steve felt him run his fingers up and down Steve’s spine.

“Cervical,” Bucky muttered, running one nail down and over one jutting bone at a time. Steve could feel the dull scrape against his skin.

“Thoracic.” He reached the curve in Steve’s back and had to curl up on himself a little to keep reaching. It pressed his chest closer to Steve’s face, and Steve fought the urge to lick.

“Lumbar.” Steve full body shuddered. Bucky did not appear to be stopping, and this was suddenly teetering on the edge of a whole different level than an exchanged blowjob/handjob.

“Sacral.”

“How far ya going there?” Steve interrupted, too loud and semi-breathless. Bucky grinned, flattening his hand to rub slow warm circles in the small of Steve’s back, but he took the hint to slow down, without Steve having to say anything else.

“I gotta ask something, Bucky,” Steve said, after a moment’s silence. Gathering his courage.

“What’s that?” Bucky responded.

“Are we…like, are we officially doing this? Like, _officially_ official?”

“Like Facebook Official?” Bucky snorted.

“Like are we calling each other boyfriends now?”

Bucky paused the movement of his hand, and Steve twisted quickly so he was more completely face to face with Bucky.

“We don’t have to,” Steve hurried to say. “I’m asking, just so I know. I don’t want either of us to be confused. If you’re not looking for a relationship, I understand. We don’t have to do that.”

“Hush,” Bucky said, and Steve fell silent.

Bucky kept looking down at him, and Steve was suddenly aware of the scar on his cheek that had been there as long as he could remember. Of how annoying it could be to constantly wait on him to get his inhaler. Of how quick to anger he could be. Of how slow he had to walk, and how his bones seemed to show all the time. Little walking skeleton.

He let his eyes fall to the side, so he wasn’t looking straight at Bucky’s. The thoughts, while not unfamiliar, were a surprise. They hadn’t been that quick and loud in a long time. He breathed, slowly, and forced himself to think through just a few minutes ago. How quick Bucky had ducked in for that kiss. His first moan, pressing his face into the skin of Steve’s thigh, leaving bruises with his grip.

He shifted his eyes back to meet Bucky’s. Bucky, who was still and quiet now, and a little sad, looking down at him. Not “brow-furrowed” sad. Just…longing.

Longing?

“Bucky?” he asked. “Talk to me here. You pretty much have to either say something or be a class A jerk. It doesn’t have to be what you think I want to hear, but you pretty much have to speak at this point.”

“Boyfriend,” Bucky said, and then his lips twisted. Steve had no idea what that expression was.

“That’s the offer on the table,” Steve said.

Steve counted his heartbeats, quick and light in his chest and head, while he watched Bucky consider this. Then, slowly, Bucky’s wistful frown turned into a wistful smile.

“Okay,” he said.

“Okay what?” Steve asked quickly. He was not letting this one slide by on nonverbal communication.

“Okay let’s be boyfriends. If…and I’m sorry to do this, but I’m not telling my family. Like, that’s not on the table.”

“That’s okay,” Steve assured him. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and then his knees so he could look Bucky in the eye. “I don’t know your family. You make whatever decisions you feel is right in that for you. I’m not going to demand to be taken to a meet-the-parents dinner or anything. I know the gay thing is touch and go for some families.”

“It’s actually not that,” Bucky said. “It’d almost be easier if it were.”

Steve turned that one over in his mind. Bucky had made a lot of not-subtle references to his family being assholes, but Steve doubted he wanted to talk about. He was doing his best to circle around the issue just now, and Steve decided to let him.

“The real question,” he said, settling in against Bucky’s chest again, “is who’s going to tell the squad?”

“Natasha probably already knows,” Bucky muttered, and he only sounded like he was half pissed off about that fact.

“Natasha probably has surveillance footage of it happening,” Steve said, and grinned in triumph with Bucky laughed.

“Seriously,” Bucky said. “What does she do for a living?”

“Bucky I swear to god, I honestly think she’d have to kill us if we found out.”

 

***

 

“You know what’s weird?” Steve asked.

“What?” Bucky responded.

“I haven’t gotten my bill yet from the hospital. It’s been, like, a whole month.”

“Huh,” Bucky said. “That is weird. I wouldn’t worry about it though. They’ll get in contact if they need to.”

“I guess,” Steve said begrudgingly. “It’s still weird though.”

“Totally weird,” Bucky agreed.

 

***

 

Bucky had six days between that last exam and the first final of the year. Five days if you didn’t include that actual day of the final.

He spent the entirety of the first day following Steve around the art college.

“You don’t have to study?” Steve asked.

_Yes_

“I can take the day,” he said out loud.

_Stop asking_

Parts of the art school reminded Bucky of med school. There was the same comradery and general identity. Everyone seemed to know everyone else. They talked about the same events and teachers and assignments plaguing them all. They even quietly complained about a few other students. There was an all-access coffee machine that seemed to just constantly be running. The class was 50/50 on whether the main food group of Earth was pizza or salad.

The differences were less easy to identify.

“I have forgotten how to draw,” Sharon said sadly.

“Same,” someone echoed from the other side of the room.

 

***

 

“How’d you like it?” Steve asked.

“I liked it,” Bucky said. “No one was an asshole.”

Steve snorted. “Uh, there are plenty of assholes. You even met some of them.”

Bucky pursed his lips and stared at Steve’s coffee mug ( _it’s just a plain black mug?)_ and tried to figure out how to explain the intangible thought.

“No, I know there are assholes,” he said slowly. “But you know they’re assholes. And if you asked Sharon, ‘hey, is that guy an asshole?’ then what would the answer be?”

“It would be yes. Sharon doesn’t keep her opinions to herself.”

“But that’s what I’m saying. Everyone knows when someone is an asshole there. It’s a lot harder to tell at my school. People are a lot better at hiding what they mean. Cruelty is subtle. Information is mishandled. Everyone is smart enough to keep their comments subtle enough that they can never be pinned down.”

“You’re saying everyone in art school is too dumb to hide their bigotry?” Steve said, and panic flared in Bucky’s chest before he saw Steve grin and realized he hadn’t offended.

“Of course not,” Bucky said.

“No, I think I get what you’re saying.”

“Do you? Good, because I don’t. I’m not even sure if it matters.”

“I think it matters,” Steve said. “When abuse it subtle, it can do a lot more damage. You’re saying you trusted people, and then they used that against you.”

“Not everyone,” Bucky said softly. “Some of them are fine. Clint is great. Bruce should be put in charge of the entire medical system. Jane will probably develop the cure for cancer and refuse to make a dime off of it. There are just a few bad eggs.”

“Anyone you want to tell me about?”

_I think Brock could justify murder to himself, given the opportunity_

“Not really,” Bucky shrugged. “I’m sorry for whining about my classmates, though. They’re not as bad as I’m making them out to be.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Steve said softly. “It’s good to bounce opinions off your friends. You never know when it’ll reveal something. Plus I love talking shit. Please, tell me about some asshole I’ve never met and let me get all righteously offended. It’s a hobby of mine.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Bucky said, watching Steve take a sip of his coffee. As the bottom of the mug came into view, Bucky saw it had a painting of someone flipping off whoever was across from the drinker. Bucky huffed in surprise.

“What?” Steve asked.

“Your mug. I thought it was just a plain black mug for a minute.”

“In this apartment? Don’t be ridiculous.”

 

***

 

Three days before the exam, Bucky walked into the apartment to find Clint and two people he didn’t know sitting on the floor of his living room. Steve was on the couch, working on something on his tablet. Clint was sprawled out on the floor, lying on his stomach, watching the other two people in the room. A girl and a boy sat facing each other with crossed legs. The girl held a stack of papers in her hands, purposefully holding them so the boy couldn’t see.

“Um,” Bucky said.

“Hey!” Clint greeted. “You gotta come watch this. That’s Pietro and his twin sister, Wanda. They’re first years.”

“Okay,” Bucky said. He bit back the “but what are they doing here” because that would be rude, and Steve was right there on the couch. Besides, Clint was probably about to explain.

“Wrong!” the girl, Wanda, suddenly exclaimed, and Bucky realized Pietro had been talking quickly under his breath to her.

“Am not!”

“Are, too, I’m looking right at it.”

“That’s not what he said in class. I know for a fact, that that’s not what he said in class,” Pietro scoffed.

“Then look it up, if you’re so sure, because it’s not what’s on the notes he sent us.”

“What are they doing?” Bucky asked, looking back to Clint. Neither of the twins had so far acknowledged his presence.

“They’re teaching each other the lectures,” Clint answered. “Don’t interrupt them. It throws them off. At this moment, they’re having a disagreement about which enzyme breaks down a certain drug.”

“In September?” Bucky said incredulously, walking into the kitchen to put away the groceries he was still carrying. He shoved the waffles in the freezer and the rest in the fridge. They could pull the dry food out later, because he didn’t feel like sorting through it right now.

“It’s practically October at this point,” Wanda said, glancing up at him. They’d apparently stopped their rapid-fire dialogue, because Pietro was hunched over his computer, clicking through the list of lecture videos to find the one that he wanted.

“That’s…that’s not relevant,” Bucky sputtered. “I meant that pharmacology isn’t until next semester for you. No professor is going to care what liver enzyme breaks down what drug right now. They might care later, but usually not even then. It’s rarely relevant.”

“Don’t even bother,” Clint sighed.

“It’s in the notes,” Wanda said, turning the page to show him, even though Bucky couldn’t see the text from there.

“Everything is in the notes,” Bucky said, glancing at Clint who was shaking his head and grinning, but he continued on anyway. “You’ll burn yourself out if you try and memorize every single fact. They don’t mean you to. Not yet, anyway.”

“It’s in the notes,” Wanda repeated.

“We might as well,” Pietro said, not looking up from his laptop. “It’s either now or later, so why not now?”

Bucky didn’t know how to explain that the information concerned was so overwhelmingly unimportant to their current class that this conversation was ridiculous. Bucky didn’t even have that kind of information on his “long term need to know” list. He was literally never going to know these facts that fucking first years were bouncing between them.

_Maybe I should know these things._

These weren’t things that were going to be on step.

_They’re in the fucking notes._

“I told you it was useless,” Clint laughed. “They’re absolutely determined to memorize everything they’re given, word for word. What’s worse is that, so far, they’re doing it. Their class is calling them the wonder twins. Wanda made a 100% in anatomy.”

“That can’t be done,” Bucky said on reflex.

“First person in over a decade,” Wanda said, flashing him a soft smile. “Sorry about invading your apartment. We just needed fresh scenery, and Clint said he was heading over here and offered.”

Bucky felt his stomach turn, because that was a warm genuine smile. She had obviously been hyper-focused on her work a moment ago, but Bucky wasn’t getting an asshole vibe from her. Yeah, some communication issues that would show up in her standardized patient scores, but nothing like ( _Alexander)_ Brock. He wasn’t even allowed to secretly hate her.

_Why the fuck do you want to hate her?_

“It’s fine,” Bucky said quickly. “I was just thrown off. You guys do whatever you need to.”

“Ha!” Pietro yelled triumphantly, and Bucky startled visible. No one noticed. Pietro jerked the headphones out of the laptop and hit play. Bucky wasn’t close enough to hear anything other than the generic drone of a lecturer, but he watched Wanda listen intently, and then jerk her eyes back to the papers in her hands.

“He contradicted himself,” she said.

“We should email him,” Pietro said. “I’ll do it.”

“Yeah, definitely email him,” Wanda said. “He’ll want to send out the correction, whichever one is wrong. Or, I guess, explain how it’s both and we’re misunderstanding.”

Bucky finally left he kitchen. He stopped by his room to grab his backpack – untouched since the exam two days ago – and then came back out into the living room to set up on the opposite end of the couch from Steve.

“Hey,” he greeted Steve softly.

“They’re scaring me,” Steve said, jerking his head toward the twins without looking up.

“I know right?” Clint laughed. “Fucking gunners, man.”

“We’re not gunners,” Wanda said, clearly offended, as Pietro typed quickly.

“You are the definition of gunners,” Clint scoffed. “Bucky?”

“Gunners,” Bucky confirmed. He angled his laptop so that no on else in the room could see it, and pulled up Instagram. There was no way he would be able to study with those two in the room.

His phone buzzed and he glanced at it, saw it was a text from Steve, and then glanced up at Steve in confusion.

“ _If you need me to kick them out, I’ll find an excuse.”_

Steve raised an eyebrow in question. Bucky smiled, but shook his head, typing back “ _It’s fine_.”

“ _You sure?”_

Bucky nodded, keeping up that smile, and Steve just stared at him, unconvinced. He let it go, slowly returning to his own work, but he was clearly unconvinced.

“Bucky,” Clint called. “Pop quiz! What provides serotonin innervation to the forebrain?”

Bucky knew this. He should know this. He’d just had a fucking exam on this, and he’d done really well. He’d done better than he’d done on almost any other medical school exam.

“Um, I don’t remember,” he admitted.

“Raphe nucleus,” Wanda said softly.

“Holy shit,” Clint gaped. “Why the fuck do you know that? I mean, it’s technically the dorsal raphe nucleus, but holy shit.”

Wanda shrugged and Pietro laughed, “She reads medical textbooks for fun. Even I’m not that crazy.”

“Guess I should look over that lecture again,” Bucky said softly. Steve was looking at him again, and Bucky forced himself to relax the set of his shoulders.

“Guess I should look over my life again,” Clint muttered from the floor.

 _Same_.

Even though Bucky had consciously decided he wasn’t allowed to hate Wanda, the twisting pain in his veins decided that he would anyway.

He put his headphones in, so Clint couldn’t ask him and more questions, and scrolled his day away online.

_It’s fine. You did great on that last exam, and you still have three days left before the final. You’re fine._

 

***

 

Two days before the exam Bucky paged through the slides from a few of the more complicated class lectures, but he didn’t really read any of them. Then he set up a bracket of 15 UWorld questions.

He missed 13 out of 15.

Bucky blinked at the number.

He knew it wasn’t a good diagnostic. UWorld was for step. It wasn’t targeted to this class. It wasn’t indicative of anything disastrous.

He set up another UWorld bracket, this time with every single neurology question it had. It took him hours to get through them all. Hundreds. Hundreds of questions that blended into each other, and that stupid little x. Over and over.

He stopped reading the questions, glancing over them for charts or familiar words, and then just picking whichever option seemed instinctually correct.

Jane had been wrong. His intuition was turning out to be shit.

He gave up and decided to go to bed. He set his alarm for three in the morning, because he had some work to do.

_Idiot, the final is the next day. What the hell are you going to be able to do in one day? Why didn’t you start a week ago, with everyone else? They give you a week for a reason._

 

***

 

Thirty hours wasn’t quite as long as forty hours, to go without sleep, so it shouldn’t have felt that bad. But the actual final was longer than a regular exam. And more difficult. And more….just…more. It was so much more.

Had he even studied that shit? Like, ever? Had that been in any of the lectures?

Bucky dropped his backpack on the floor just inside the front door and looked wearily around the apartment. Steve was in class, still. Would be for the rest of the afternoon. He should take a nap. Clean himself up. Take a shower. Put on his game face for Steve.

Instead he sat down on the floor next to the couch and stared at the wall. Bucky knew what it felt like to fail an exam. The only question now was whether or not he’d failed it hard enough fail the entire class.

 

***

 

Steve pushed through the door into the apartment ready to eat. He’d skipped breakfast because he’d gotten up later than he’d meant to, and it was well past one in the afternoon. He paused for a moment to catch his breath, peeling off his sweater – _would September just make up it’s mind what season it was?_ – when he caught sight of Bucky sitting on the floor.

Shit.

Steve hadn’t sent him a good luck text before the exam. Not that Steve believed in that kind of thing having a physical effect, but the test has clearly gone poorly, and the omission made Steve feel guilty. Yeah that kind of thing didn’t do anything physically, but emotionally? Sometimes you never knew.

“Bucky?” he asked softly. He kicked off his shoes and shuffled over to sit next to his boyfriend.

“I did not have a good day,” Bucky said, and Steve took that as his cue to slide down to sit on the carpet.

“Final didn’t go well?”

“I don’t know for sure, because finals are different. The grades aren’t released until all the data has been collected or whatever the fuck it is they do while we wait. But, the safe bet is no. No, I did not do well.”

“Do you need anything?” Steve asked. “I know I can’t fix it, but let’s make it not so bad. What do you want? Do you want coffee?”

“Steve,” Bucky said. God, he sounded so tired. Like someone had beat the crap out of him and left him in an alley.

“What?” Steve asked, leaning in. “Yes, coffee?”

“I really hate coffee.”

“You…hate coffee?” Steve echoed. That wasn’t…that didn’t fit. Bucky was always drinking coffee. Well, not always. Not as much as Clint or Sharon or even Natasha. Actually, he only took it when offered. When it was already made. And even then he filled it halfway with cream.

“I hate coffee,” Bucky said. He blinked, and the tears filming his eyes dripped down in matching curved lines. Steve wanted to trace them with his fingers.

“Then why do you drink it?” Steve asked. He winced at the way it sounded accusatory, but Bucky just huffed something close to a laugh.

“Because I’m supposed to drink it. Because I’m in medical school, and when I say I’m tired people make me coffee. Or tell me to get coffee. Or ask how many cups of coffee I’ve had. And there’s like…there’s this unspoken rule, that you’re not allowed to be tired until you’ve had a certain amount of coffee first. Like you have to take your body to its absolute limits before you’re allowed to be exhausted.”

Steve kissed the drying tear tracks on either side of Bucky’s face, and then leaned his head down to rest it on Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky leaned his head against Steve’s in response.

“Or maybe it’s that I’m scared it’s working,” Bucky continued. “What happens if I stop drinking it? Do I get even more exhausted? I mean, it’s clearly doing _something_ for a large percentage of the population, but I just hate it. I hate its taste, the way it lingers too dry on your tongue and in the back of your throat. How it’s sour and bitter at the same time. How it’s too _hot_ in your body. Burns your throat and makes your stomach sweat. I hate its smell and the way it never goes away. I hate the percolator and the sizzling paper-ripping shrieking noise it makes. I hate it. I fucking hate it.”

Steve untangled himself from Bucky, getting to his feet. He felt like he was going to cry now too, but he promised himself he’d wait until he was in his room and Bucky was in his own. Or, until whenever he was next alone.

He reached the coffee maker sitting out on the counter and unplugged it. He wrapped his arms around it, pulling it into his chest. Then he took two steps to the left and dumped the entire thing into the trash can. He clapped his hands against each other, like an old cartoon, and marched back to Bucky.

“Problem solved,” he announced. “For here, at least.”

“What the fuck?” Bucky said. “That was…that’s not practical, Steve. It’s dumb. You love coffee. You have, like, a thousand coffee mugs. You drink it every morning. Every single morning. You won’t talk to me unless you’ve had coffee.”

“Yeah well, I’m an overdramatic little shit, and I like to exaggerate. I’ll be fine. And if I’m not, we’ve got that French press Natasha got us. In case there’s an emergency.”

“Natasha!” Bucky exclaimed. “Natasha will be so pissed.”

“French press? Still here. Remember?”

“We’re going to get caffeine headaches. We’re going to go through withdrawal.”

“I’ll buy some tea. We can become tea people. That’ll also take care of my coffee mug collection problem, plus I hear it’s actually very calming. Maybe it’ll be much better for you. Heaven knows would could both calm down sometimes.”

Bucky made a noise that could have been assent or dissent, and kept staring at the trashcan. The coffee machine was just visible, peaking out over the top.

“Hey,” Steve said, putting his hand under Bucky’s chin and turning his head to face him. “I won’t miss it. It’s fine.”

“I threw a hissy fit, so you threw out something you use every day. Idiot.”

It hadn’t looked like a hissy fit to Steve, but he was getting the feeling Bucky was going to argue with everything he said. So he gave up and just sat on the floor, picking silently at carpet fuzz while Bucky stared at the wall.

 

***

 

Bucky didn’t say anything when the group text changed his day from stressful to a panic-inducing adrenaline rush.

 _Final grades are up :)_ with a fucking smiley face like it was the best news in the world. Like limbo wasn’t a preferable place to hell. Like Bucky hadn’t been trying to think about anything other than this moment for the last two days.

White adrenaline dripped in sheets down his insides as he turned off the television and stood. Walked into his room. Logged onto his computer. To his account. Was it really necessary for anything to take this many key strokes? This many clicks? At least the internet here was better than at school because

Sixty-nine point seven.

Staring up at him from the dim screen. Smudged with fingerprints and dust. That was...that was passing, right? That rounded to a pass? His eyes darted around the list of his grades in the class until he found the official little letter near the top.

“P”

He screamed. It was more like a thin shriek, really, and Steve came bursting out of his room and into Bucky’s, accidentally clipping the doorframe with his shoulder hard enough that he almost stumbled and fell to the ground, and Bucky just laughed and laughed.

“What?! Bucky, what the fuck?”

“Passed!” Bucky crowed in delight. “Fucking passed. One down, three to go.”

“Fuck yeah!” Steve yelled. “Fuck! I’m so fucking proud Bucky, I knew you had it. You so had it!”

“Well, it was a close call,” Bucky snorted, and that was new, normally he did not share that kind of information. “Passed” was usually good enough. It kept the constant persecuting judgement slipping past him and onto other people.

Maybe it was because Steve’s response was, “Who cares? Passing is fucking passing, and you did it!”

 _You literally did the bare minimum_.

“Can we get drunk?’ Bucky asked. “Tonight? Like, right now?”

“You want to go someplace?” Steve asked.

“God, no.”

“I’ll call Natasha. She always has alcohol, and she always shares. How drunk are you talking?”

“Really fucking drunk. No judgement?”

“Not from me. You’ve earned it.”

Bucky grinned as Steve retreated from the room to get his phone and call Natasha. She’d probably bring Clint, too, which meant someone would tell Sharon. And it wasn’t that Bucky didn’t like Steve’s friends, it just wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind when he’d said ‘get drunk.’

Still. He glanced back at that “P” sitting on his screen, and discovered it didn’t much matter. This day was not capable of going downhill.

 

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

Natasha hadn’t just brought alcohol. She had Brought Alcohol. She had also brought Clint and Sharon, but Bucky had already resolved himself to that, so it didn’t even bother him. It was still a small group, and they’d all shown up willing to drink.

Clint had high fived him when he’d walked in.

“Passed?” he’d asked.

“Passed,” Bucky had confirmed. “You?”

“Passed!”

It was the most beautiful word in the English language.

_You’ll need to do better than that if you want to clear the first step exam._

At the moment, Bucky was sitting at the kitchen table across from Natasha. She’d matched him shot for shot, but was sitting up carefully in her seat. Lounging gracefully with crossed legs. They hadn’t said anything in a while, watching Steve and Clint and Sharon laugh themselves nauseous in the living room. Bucky knew he was grinning at Steve like an idiot, but he was too drunk to mind.

His attention came back to Natasha, who was pulling her sweatshirt up over her head, so apparently the alcohol was having at least a little bit of an effect. Natasha readjusted her double-layered tank tops, and then settled back against the chair.

Bucky’s eyes were drawn to the scar. The pink smooth line running down the length of her forearm. Bucky jerked his eyes away, looking back at Steve again. _I fucking knew it, I knew it with the long sleeves ages ago, does anyone else know?_

Of course someone knew. Natasha was sitting calmly at the table, sipping her half-whiskey half-coffee concoction she’d made in the French Press. She was nonchalaunt, and as comfortable as always.

The coffee cup itself had the grip of a handgun in place of the mug handle, and then the barrel – rather than coming to an end – suddenly become the mug itself. And Natasha was holding it with her finger off the trigger. The mug, full, was designed in a way that made holding it like that unnecessarily difficult. Anyone else holding that mug would have put their finger on the trigger, to give themselves another point of contact. Unless they’d been trained not to.

She caught him looking. He just stared at her finger, extended straight like a fucking professional, and suddenly she was staring at him stare at her. Eventually, he dragged his gaze up to meet her own and, as they stared, Natasha deliberately placed her finger on the trigger.

Alcohol and epiphany mixed dangerously.

“Did you do that?” Bucky said softly. “To yourself?” He gestured at the scar down her arm. Then touched his own unscarred forearm, in case the meaning was unclear. Because he had a death wish, and now seemed as good a time as any.

“No,” Natasha said calmly. “It was done to me.”

“Oh,” Bucky said. _Oh._

“Oh,” Natasha echoed. Bucky thought she was maybe amused. He’d had a lot of alcohol. Different kinds, too. Nothing to eat.

“Wanna do another shot?” he asked.

“Definitely,” Natasha answered.

The rest of the party was a blur for Bucky. It started out as a mostly pleasant blur. And then it started twisting. He kept losing track of “I passed” as he folded away into “yeah but just barely.”

He had another shot with Natasha. And then another, for which she declined to join him.

He vaguely remembered Clint falling asleep on the couch. He remembered Sharon fighting with Steve about sleeping on the floor. She just wanted a blanket and a pillow, while he tried to make her take his bed. Surprisingly, Sharon won. Bucky thought it was maybe because she just laid down, and Steve wasn’t strong enough to physically make her move.

Natasha left of her own accord a little while after that. _How is she not drunk?_

“This was fun. We should do it again soon. Well, relatively soon. I have an unavoidable event out of town for the next few weeks, but I’ll call you when I’m back.”

Bucky did remember noticing that, as she carried her mug to the sink, her finger was off the trigger again.

 

***

 

Bucky tumbled into his bed and took Steve down with him. Steve laughed to himself, trying to keep from falling directly on top of Bucky, but it was difficult to manage. Bucky was all splayed limps wriggling movement.

“Steve?” Bucky slurred drunkenly. He hadn’t been kidding about getting wasted. While Bucky wasn’t coming up for air any time soon, Steve, the lightweight of the group, was already mostly sober. Sober enough to know that if this was Bucky making a move, then the answer was “not tonight.”

“What is it?” Steve asked, making an effort to move Bucky’s legs up onto the bed with the rest of him. It was difficult. The legs weighed about as much as all of Steve did.

“I wanna tell you something,” Bucky drawled. “Like a bedtime story.”

“Okay, I’m listening.” He made a move to step back, but Bucky pulled him down onto the bed. Pretty much manhandled him into curling up in front of Bucky as the little spoon. It was mostly cute.

“I hate that painting in the hallway,” Bucky said. “I hate looking at it.”

That was not what Steve had been expecting to hear. His stomach twisted unnaturally in insult, and he struggled back up into sitting position.

“Okay, you do not get to be an asshole just because you’re drunk. I am not that kind of friend.”

Bucky didn’t seem to have heard him.

“My mother has never done dishes in her entire life,” he slurred, and Steve raised an eyebrow. “Never. And that picture makes me so pissed. Hallway picture with the woman.” He gestured in what was mostly the direction of the hallway. “I want to climb in and dry them for her, so she doesn’t have to put them all in the drying rack, and I _can’t_.”

“We should have this conversation later,” Steve said, untangling himself. “You’re not making a lot of sense.”

“I hate my family, Steve. I really hate my family. Well, most of my family. Ana is cute. She’s sweet. Did I tell you I have a little sister?”

He wasn’t letting go of Steve’s arm, and Steve was a little at a loss. He was no longer sure that leaving Bucky here to sleep it off was the right answer, but he also didn’t want to compromise Bucky’s trust. This was feeling like taking advantage, even though Bucky wasn’t touching anything more than his wrist.

“No, you didn’t,” he answered

“I don’t wanna go back,” Bucky babbled. “But I’m stuck. I’m just endlessly stuck, and everyone keeps telling me that’ll it’ll be okay, and that I’ll make it through and I’m just…I _can’t_.”

He wasn’t even crying. He was just staring. At first it seemed like he was staring at Steve, but as he kept talking it was more like he was staring at the wall. Through the wall.

“I can’t,” he whispered. “I want out so badly, but I’m scared to get out. I just want it to stop.”

Steve sat back down on the edge of the bed.

“Do you think Natasha could kill someone for me?”

“Bucky,” Steve said gently. “I don’t think Natasha actually kills people. She’s just…she’s just Natasha.”

Bucky laughed weakly.

“Who did you want her to kill?” Steve asked.

Bucky bit his lips between his teeth and shook his head before saying, “No one, Stevie. I was just joking. Sorry it wasn’t very funny.”

Steve kept sitting on the edge of the bed. The room was silent except for the sounds of Bucky’s heaving breathing. Like something was caught in his chest while he stared a hole in the wall. Steve wondered if he should go and get Sharon, who would be more likely to know what to say. Or Clint, who had known Bucky for longer. But both of those seemed like a betrayal, so he just kept sitting on the bed, fishing for the epiphany-inducing words that would bring Bucky down from wherever he was teetering.

“Sorry,” Bucky mumbled eventually. “I’m a sad drunk.”

“It’s fine,” Steve said. _Nothing about this is fine_.

“I keep forgetting I deserve it.”

“Deserve what?”

Bucky shook his head again and then suddenly declared brightly, “I can suck you off!” Like this would solve everything. He struggled up into a sitting position and Steve leaned back from the sudden enthusiasm. “Yeah, let me suck you off. I can do that!”

“No, Bucky,” Steve said firmly. “You need to get some sleep. You are way too drunk for this. You really need to go to bed.”

“But, I can make it up to you,” Bucky said, the brightness fading from his voice as quickly as it had come.

“No,” Steve said, more firmly, then stopped and took a breath, pinching his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He was tired himself and, while not completely drunk, was still foggy with tipsy comedown.

“Don’t be mad at me,” Bucky said.

“Aw, shit,” Steve sighed. “I’m just going to bed, Bucky. I’m not mad, but you need to sleep. Go to sleep.”

He stood up and was almost at the door when Bucky said, “You can fuck me?” bringing Steve’s heart into his throat with the pleading tone.

“Stop,” Steve said.

“Please don’t be mad. I didn’t mean that a blowjob was the only option. You can fuck me, it’s okay. I wasn’t holding out. It’s okay.”

Steve left the room because he didn’t know what else to do. He closed the door quietly and stared at the painting hanging in the hall. He quietly took it down, bracing it between his hands, and shuffled down to lean it against the wall in his room. He considered falling into bed, but the thought made him sick, so instead he shuffled back down the hall. (Paused at Bucky’s door, couldn’t hear anything inside at all.) Sharon was asleep on the floor, and Steve got down next to her, forcing himself in underneath her blanket.

“Steve?” she asked sleepily.

“Yeah.”

“You okay?”

“I don’t know. I’m just going to sleep here, okay?”

“Okay. Goodnight.”

Steve focused on breathing deeply until he fell asleep.

 

***

 

When Bucky stumbled out of his room to search for a glass of water sometime the next day, he fought back another wave of nausea when he saw the painting was gone from the hall. He stared at the blank space; the single nail reminding him that alcohol was not his friend.

He moved out into the living area. Steve was on the couch, watching some cartoon while he sketched. He looked up at Bucky, and his eyes were so sad that Bucky lost the battle and ran the last few steps so he could throw up in the sink. He gagged multiple times, and then Steve was there, hand slowly rubbing his back.

“Rough night,” Bucky said, spitting bile into the sink.

“Yeah.”

“Everyone else?”

“They already left. They both said to tell you congrats on the end of the first class.”

“Oh, thanks.” He rinsed his mouth out and spit again. “Steve, I have to ask. Where’d the hallway painting go?”

“You said you didn’t like it, so I’m going to move it to my room.”

“Shit, Steve. I didn’t…what did I say?”

“Nothing really coherent. You were all over the place. But Bucky, I don’t know how to say this, so I’m just going to rip the Band-Aid off and go for it. Have you ever thought about seeing a therapist?”

Bucky blinked.

“What the _fuck_ did I say last night?”

“No, it’s not that kind of a thing. You didn’t tell me any big secret, if that’s what you’re thinking. You just…fuck, Bucky. You were so sad. You were just miserable, and I couldn’t say anything to make you any happier.”

“I was drunk.”

“You were _miserable._ ”

_Pathetic._

“Steve, I’m really sorry if I was a downer last night,” he said slowly. “But I’m not sure where this is coming from, honestly. I’m not--”

“Don’t bullshit me!” Steve snapped. “I am not going to go easy on you because you’re hungover. I don’t care if it hurts your head, you’re going to listen to me. You scared me last night. You terrified me, and you’ve done that before, too. I don’t know what to do about it. I’m powerless here. I have nothing. I understand if you don’t want to talk to me, and you don’t have to, but can you maybe at least a little bit consider talking to _someone_?”

_You have absolutely no one to blame for this but yourself._

“I understand,” Bucky said slowly. “I’ll…I understand. Is it okay if I keep living here for the rest of the year?” _Push past this. Think logistics._

“What?” Steve said. His voice was thick with shock, and it hurt that he wouldn’t even give Bucky this.

“Oh,” Bucky said. “Okay. Um…can I have the semester then? Please, Steve, can I at least stay for the semester? I don’t have time to look for a new place, and I’ll stay out of your hair. I can spend most of my time at the school. I’ll be like a ghost.”

“Do you,” Steve choked. “Do you think I’m breaking up with you?”

Bucky finally managed to look at Steve’s face, and flinched from the anger there.

“I,” was all he managed.

“I am not breaking up with you, you fucking moron! You thought I would kick you out? You thought I would kick you out of your own apartment? Dump you in the parking lot, because I’m what? Concerned about you? How does that work in your head? I love you, so I’m going to kick you to the curb?”

Bucky blinked, and Steve’s mouth shut with a snap.

“Love me?” Bucky echoed.

Steve moved quickly, pulling Bucky’s face down and rising up on his tiptoes to kiss Bucky. He drew back sharply after a moment and made a face.

“Ew. You taste like vomit and old vodka,” he grimaced.

“Can’t imagine why,” Bucky said dryly.

_Tell him you love him, too. Tell him!_

“Do you get that I’m not breaking up with you?” Steve asked.

“Yeah, I…yeah.”

“And will you at least _think_ about seeing a therapist. I am not in any way going to force the issue, but can you promise that you will at least objectively think about the pros and cons.”

“I couldn’t go anywhere associated with the school,” Bucky said. “I’d have to go somewhere separate and far away. _If_ I decide to do it.”

“That sounds totally fair. I understand that completely,” Steve said. He was obviously trying not to grin in triumph. They were apparently not going to mention his confession.

_Tell him you love him, too._

“I’m going to take a shower,” Bucky said. “And maybe throw up a couple more times.”

“I’ll be here,” Steve smiled. “I’ll even make you lunch or something. Get some carbs in you. Because I am a _nice_ boyfriend. I am the best boyfriend.”

“I believe it,” Bucky said, backing away down the hallway. He was even pretty sure the tired smile he gave Steve was genuine.

_Can you imagine your father’s reaction if he finds out you’re thinking about therapy?_

_It’s irrelevant, because you are not going._

 

***

 

“And then I told him I love him,” Steve whined, burying his face further into Sharon’s couch pillows. “Because I am a dumbass. A clingy dumbass.”

“Yes, you are a dumbass,” Sharon agreed. “Which pair of earrings?”

Steve pulled his face out of the couch for long enough to narrow his eyes and evaluate the options.

“The one on your left,” Steve said. “Matches the style better.”

Sharon nodded, turning back to the mirror and continuing the previous conversation.

“Dumbassitry aside, I don’t think it was a bad move. You said that he pulled it out of the conversation, so he noticed. That’s good. I told you to love him, remember?.”

“Yeah, but he didn’t say anything else about it.”

“Because he’s normally so good with words,” Sharon commented dryly, earning herself a snort of derision from the face-couch. “Seriously Steve, if he didn’t balk, then I think he liked it. It takes him longer to get around to these things. We know this. Think about Natasha. Can you imagine what her reaction would have been in those early months if we’d called her our friend to her face?”

“Our deaths come to mind.”

“Exactly. But that didn’t slow us down. Especially Clint.”

“Because he thinks with his dick.”

“Well…I’m not completely denying that, but that wasn’t the extent of it. Clint worked hard for her. And I don’t mean he worked hard to _get_ her, I mean he worked hard _for_ her. For her benefit. So I hope you’re paying attention right now, because I’m serious. Keep at it. Boys like Barnes don’t get to be the way they are because they woke up one morning and thought ‘I’m a piece of shit’ and just suddenly became nonfunctional. Something, or someone, has been telling that boy that for a long time. If you want to undo it, you’ve got a long road ahead of you.”

“Yeah but I don’t--” Steve began, and then trailed off.

“Don’t what?”

“I don’t want to be a replacement. I don’t want to move into that position of, of…emotional _authority_ in his life. And I think that’s maybe a little bit what’s happening. He’s started checking in to see if I’m mad, and he’s changing his behavior based on how I react. I don’t want to make it worse.”

“By what? Rewarding him? You think that if you love him while he’s like this, then you’re encouraging the behavior?”

When Steve didn’t say anything in response, Sharon turned around to face him, lipstick half applied.

“That is not how love works,” she said sharply. “And I hate to break it to you Steve, but Bucky was doing all of those things from day one. I saw it. Natasha saw it. Clint saw it even if he didn’t recognize it. That’s why we were all concerned.”

“So I’m a fucking dumbass,” Steve said mournfully.

“We already established that to be true. But no, not in this context. I think that it’s more likely that you were exactly what he needed. Someone who wasn’t going to baby him, but wasn’t going to expect things that he couldn’t do. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? Hm? Anyway, the really important question here is, have you swallowed his dick yet?”

Steve made a noise into the couch.

“Was that a yes or a no?”

“No.”

“Steve, that was literally the first piece of advice I gave you. I can’t believe you’re being this irresponsible.”

“He swallowed mine, though,” Steve grinned, and Sharon gasped.

“And you didn’t tell me immediately? You are the worst friend ever!”

 

***

 

Steve got back to the apartment really late that night. Bucky was already neck deep in his next class, and had opted to stay at home and study while Steve and Sharon went out. Clint had also declined to come, so Steve had figured it was a legitimate refusal, not an anxiety-induced one.

When Steve walked back into the apartment the lights were already off, and everything was silent. He tried to keep that silence as he pattered around in the bathroom and then shuffled down the hall into his own bed. He hadn’t been under the covers for more than a few minutes, though, when the door opened carefully.

“Steve?” Bucky’s voice whispered at him from the hallway. “Are you awake?”

“Yeah,” Steve answered, a little more loudly, sitting up. “Something wrong?”

“No, I…I just was wondering if you would let me sleep in here with you tonight?”

Steve winced internally at the wording that Bucky might not have even noticed. Because yeah it was inarguably Steve’s call if Bucky was “allowed” to sleep in his bed, but who worded their questions like that?

“Um, sure, Bucky. Come on in.”

Which had to have been the least romantic way to invite someone into your bed. Still, it didn’t stop Bucky from padding softly across the room to join Steve. Steve scooted back toward the wall, so Bucky could slide in underneath the covers. Their feet brushed, and Steve automatically adjusted himself to make more room for Bucky. Then he wondered if maybe it had been on purpose, and he’d just shut Bucky down.

Steve flipped over on his stomach so he could look at Bucky, and was startled to find Bucky in the same position. They looked at each other in the semi darkness for a while.

“Hey,” Steve said.

“Hey, yourself.”

Steve reached out, hand running between the sheets with a soft whispering noise, and brushed Bucky’s hand. They tangled their fingers together. Bucky ran his thumb back and forth where it touched the back of Steve’s hand. Then he sighed heavily, lifted himself up, and shifted himself closer to Steve. Close enough that his face was on Steve’s shoulder, although it meant they couldn’t see each other eyes anymore. Bucky kissed Steve, right at the top of his scapula, leaving his lips pressed to the skin. The smallest touch of cold wet left behind.

Steve’s breathing was picking up. He tried to measure it out, keeping the sound low and quiet, but he knew Bucky could feel the rate pick up. He was pressed into Steve’s back, moving up and down with every inspiration-expiration.

Bucky kissed him again. His lips made a slight pop when he moved to a new location. A tiny crackle of wet suction that would have been impossible to hear if there had been any other sound in the room. Steve twisted his hips, just a fraction, and felt Bucky’s lips smile against him in response. Steve flexed his fingers, sliding his hand, searching out Bucky’s again. Their fingers re-tangled, just as Bucky bit down at curve of Steve’s neck and Steve felt it shoot up in sensation, all the way up to the side of his face. His fingers tightened on Bucky’s, and his hips shifted again.

“You know I do too?” Bucky said, above him.

“Do what?” Steve asked, voice half-muffled by the pillow.

“Love you.”

He knew Bucky could feel the sharp intake of breath. Bucky nuzzled his face into Steve’s neck in response, lying down all the way again. It pinned their hands underneath Bucky, and Steve knew he’d have to draw his back eventually, before it fell asleep, but he had no intention of moving for now.

“You love me?” Steve asked, wanted the rush of hearing it again, this time looking into Bucky’s eyes.

“What’s not to love?” Bucky asked, smiling in the dark.

“You, too,” Steve answered. “What’s not to love?”

They fell silent after that, breaths hot against each other’s skin. Eventually, Bucky closed his eyes, prompting Steve to pull his hand out from under Bucky, rearranging themselves into a more comfortable position, arms tangled up between them. They fell asleep like that. Wrapped up and warm.

 

***

 

The semester stretched on. Neither Bucky nor Steve mentioned a therapist again, but Bucky did ask Steve for help sticking to his own schedule. It was easier to fall asleep and wake up in healthy cycles, when fucking yourself over meant fucking someone else over, too. They slept in Steve’s bed most nights, working their way up through making out and sloppy handjobs.

They balanced. Compromised. Teetered their way through the last third of the semester by ignoring half the problems and beating the rest into submission.

Winter Break, coming up on them quickly, threatened to upset everything. Bucky mused over it, sitting in his car in the parking lot. He’d been out there long enough that the air was getting too cold for comfort, even in the enclosed space. He stuck his hands under his armpits and thought about going home. Or, rather, back to his parents’ home. To his father. To Alexander. To whatever the fuck Bucky was supposed to call him now.

He sighed and rubbed his hands over his face roughly. He had a few more days left in his last class, but he wasn’t unduly worried. Steve had turned out to be a real taskmaster, once Bucky had admitted he was having trouble staying focused. Still, he was tired and stressed. He was worried about leaving.

He’d gotten an email that morning with his flight confirmation, courtesy of Alexander ( _he’ll kill you if he hears you calling him that)_ with the departure information clear. He was leaving the night after the final, and he wouldn’t be returning until a couple of days before the start of the spring semester. That meant nearly five weeks at home. Without Steve.

Bucky gave up on procrastinating and pushed open his car door. Being flown back to his parents’ meant he’d have to leave his car here. Yet another unsubtle way of wrapping him up without control. _A major step in recovery is separating yourself from the affective environment._

_Yeah, well._

Bucky wished that recognizing manipulation tactics made them less effective, as he trudged up the stairs carefully, stepping around the little patches of ice.

Steve, for his part, was going to be spending the break in the apartment. He couldn’t afford to fly out and neither could his mother. Bucky had offered to pay, but Steve had declined ( _he’s going to be so mad when he finally figures out why he’s not getting that hospital bill)_ and Bucky had let him.

Sharon was staying, too, though. She didn’t have family to go home, too. Natasha had promised to pop by. Or rather, she’d threatened to pop by. Even Sam was going to be making a short visit. Steve would be fine.

Everything was fine.

Bucky pushed open the door, stepping into the apartment and letting the door swing shut loudly behind him just because he didn’t feel like catching it. His heart plummeted when Steve stood up from the couch, turning around to face Bucky. Thick tears were dripping down his face and his eyes were red and raw. He was silent crying, but he’d obviously been doing it for a while.

“What the fuck,” Bucky gasped. He felt like he’d been punched in the gut. “Steve.”

He closed the distance, gathering Steve up into his arms, and Steve used the leverage to wraps his legs around Bucky’s waist. He buried his face into Bucky’s neck and started bawling. All the ugly crying that had been hold back poured out and Bucky spun on his heel, holding Steve’s weight in his arms, trying to figure out what was going on.

“Steve,” he said, loudly over the crying. “Steve please tell me what’s happening. Please?” He clutched the stretchy fabric of the tank top in his fists.

“Steve, please. Baby, please. You’re scaring me. You’re really fucking scaring me.” He sank to the floor, pulling Steve further into his arms, digging in his back pocket for his phone. He dialed quickly, and then pinned it between his ear and shoulder so he could use his hands again to pull Steve into him.

“Sup, James?” Sharon’s voice rang out from the phone.

“Get the fuck over here right now,” Bucky ordered. “Something’s wrong with Steve. Something happened, I don’t know, but he’s a mess and he needs you. Get over here now.”

Bucky heard a muffled, “Hey guys, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you later” and then a scraping chair.

“I’m on my way,” Sharon said. “Ten minutes, tops.” And then again the muffled voice calling, “I’m sorry, I absolutely have to go.”

Bucky hung up the phone and let it drop to the floor.

Steve was no longer sobbing hard enough that Bucky was worried he was going to have an attack, but that only barely alleviated level of panicking concern in the room.

“Please, Steve?” Bucky whispered, leaning down to put his face right in Steve’s.

“My mother is dead,” Steve sobbed back. Each word an individual breath as his diaphragm contracted spasmodically. Bucky suddenly noticed that Steve was clutching his own phone in both hands, tight to his chest.

“Oh shit,” Bucky breathed. “Oh, _shit_.” Thank god Sharon was on the way. He didn’t have a clue how to deal with this.

He maneuvered Steve into a position that made it easier for him to breath, and typed out an update to Sharon. Steve was still talking.

“Heart complication,” he sobbed. “They said emergency surgery but it didn’t work. That she passed away. Passed away? That doesn’t mean anything! That’s a stupid phrase. She’d dead! She’s fucking dead!”

Bucky had had lessons in this. They’d taught him things to say in the cases of lost loved ones. In tragedy. In the hell of the irreversible. All he could think of to do was clutch Steve more tightly and run through a mental list of heart problems that it could have been.

Steve’s mother was most likely in her 40s, so what kind of problem would cause a sudden death like that? In someone young and, if pictures were to be believed, healthy? All the answers he was coming up with were genetic, and it made him tighten his grip on Steve in selfish fear.

What the fuck was he supposed to say right now?

Sharon’s arrival was like breaking clouds. She pushed through the door and dropped to her knees next to them both. Reaching out and rubbing Steve’s arm. He’d calmed down, some. He wasn’t babbling anymore, and his chest wasn’t heaving. He was just crying softly into Bucky’s arm.

Bucky untangled himself gently, pushing Steve toward Sharon who shot him a look of confusion.

“I have to make a phone call,” Bucky explained.

“Right now?!” Sharon snapped angrily.

“Yes,” Bucky said calmly. “Right now. It has to be right now.” _Before I lose my nerve._

He stepped out on to the balcony, phone already ringing and pressed to his ear.

“Dr. Pierce’s office, how may I help you?”

“Yes, hi. This is James, Dr. Pierce’s stepson. I’d like to speak to my father.”

A brief moment of silence, then, “I’m sorry, but he’s unavailable at the moment. Can I take a message for you?”

“Absolutely. If you could just tell him that I’m not going to be using that ticket he sent me this morning, that’d be great.”

Another moment of silence, and Bucky imagined the scene that was playing out. The nurse or the secretary or whoever it was conveying the message to his father, who was undoubtedly sitting right there a few feet away.

“Um,” the woman said. “Could you hold on just one moment?”

“No,” Bucky said, bitter smile twisting his lips.

The pause and change was quicker than he’d anticipated. The man obviously wanted to know what had happened to invoke this un-invokeable rebellion on the part of his compliant son.

“James.”

_That voice. That fucking voice._

“Alexander,” Bucky said, and he was going to pay for that when he wasn’t riding an adrenaline induce desperation.

“What--”

“I’m afraid I don’t have much time to talk,” Bucky said. “I’m just calling to inform you that I will not be flying out on Saturday. I’m sorry you wasted the money on the ticket.”

“James.” Sharper this time.

“In fact,” _you’re pushing your luck you’re pushing your luck you’re pushing your luck_ “I might not be able to make it there for Christmas at all this year.”

Silence.

Then,

“Your sister will miss you.”

Bucky tried to parse that. Tried to figure out what the threat behind it was. What chess move that could possibly be. He was out of practice with this game. He’d spent too long with Steve and his friends.

“My sister,” James began, but found he couldn’t come up with anything else to say beyond that.

“Did something happen, James? What brought this on?”

_I don’t want to die._

He wasn’t sure where the thought came from. He also wasn’t sure which was more concerning, that he couldn’t remember when he decided that he no longer wanted to die or that he couldn’t remember when he first decided he did.

But Steve was waiting inside for him and Bucky was unsure about almost everything in life except the fact that he _could not die_. Steve was inside, waiting for him. The resolution gave him another wave of strength.

“Something came up,” he said.

“Obviously. Something wrong with the school? Something you need to tell me? Did you fail another class, or is it something more serious. Do you need me to make a phone call?”

“None of those things. Everything is fine.”

“Obviously not. Listen, James, Ana misses you. She’s been missing you, and honestly I think she’s looking a little frayed around the edges. Seeing you would do her good.”

Ana. Alexander’s biological daughter. Ten years younger than Bucky and – the last time he’d seen her – vibrant with life. He bit his lip. He knew what that house did to people.

_Frayed around the edges?_

“What if you just come back for part of the break?” Alexander pushed. “Spend a few weeks there, getting everything sorted out. Then you can fly back here on the 23rd and still have time to see your family. Still have time to make it to the Christmas party.”

“I,” Bucky tried.

“Don’t worry about the ticket. I’m not going to ask you to reimburse me or anything. Although that does remind me, that I have a question about a charge to your account from a local hospital. I don’t necessarily have a problem with a charge that size, but I am curious as to what happened.”

Bucky couldn’t tell if he already knew. It was possible that this was fishing for information, or it was possible that this was a threat to claim fraud. To cause trouble for Steve. Bucky could shout that it had been a willing payment all he wanted, but if Alexander was pissed enough and said the right things to the right people, it wouldn’t matter in the end.

Bucky swallowed dryly.

“I’d love to come home on the 23rd,” he said carefully. “That should be plenty of time to get everything sorted.”

_At least it’s a few more weeks. A few weeks shifted in my favor._

“And?” Alexander pressed.

“Thank you for the ticket,” Bucky said. It was a reflex. There had been a time when he’d been bad at the guess-what-I-want-you-to-say game, but he was a master at it now. “I’ll see you in a few weeks.”

“Perfect.”

Bucky kept the phone to his ear until he heard the line go dead. Then he kept it there a little while longer, trying to figure out if his fingers were numb from the cold or from something else. Winter was biting at his skin.

Then he remembered Steve, and shoved his phone back into his pocket as he turned and yanked open the balcony door.

Steve was sitting upright, his back against the side of the couch. He had his knees drawn up to his chest and he’d gone back to the silent constant tears. Sharon was sitting cross-legged in front of him. She looked up and shot Bucky a curious look, but Bucky shook his head and either that or the expression on his face made Sharon let it go.

“Do you need anything?” Bucky asked. “I know I can’t fix it, but is there anything we can try. What do you want?”

“Bucky,” Steve said. God, he sounded so tired. Like someone had beat the crap out of him and left him in an alley. “I just want to sit here. For now. Can you come sit next to me?”

“Of course,” Bucky said, sinking down to where he’d been before. “In fact, I’m going to be here for the next several weeks. Just got an extension on my away-from-home license.”

“Really?” Steve said, looking up at him.

“Really,” Bucky confirmed, and Steve sagged against Bucky in exhaustion.

“I love you,” he said wearily.

“I love you, too,” Bucky answered.

Steve shifted his face so he could look at Sharon and said, “I love you, too, Sharon, but not in the same way. Sorry.”

Sharon gave a short laugh through her nose, like she couldn’t believe Steve had just made a joke, pathetic as it had been. Then she rolled her eyes.

“Love you too, you stupid moron,” she sighed.

In a while, Bucky knew that they were going to have to get up. He had less than 48 hours till a final ( _at least you’re ready for it)_. Steve was going to have to drive out to start funeral arrangements. Bucky would follow him the moment the exam was over. Phone calls and insurance and paperwork would have to be managed and then re-managed. Eventually, Bucky would have to fly to his parents’ house. Attend the annual Christmas party. Play nice. Be good.

For the moment, however, Steve had asked to just sit and be still, so that was exactly what they were going to do.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so here's the plan. I had to wind this particular part down, because it's a Big Bang fic so 1) I had a deadline and 2) I felt like I was being unfair to my wonderful artist, who had originally signed on for a 20k fic. (Lol.)
> 
> However, this work is only half done. There is obviously a lot left to be resolved, and I have another 50k heavily outlined. I'm going to take a month to write most of it out, and the plan is to start posting the second (and final) part of the series at the beginning of October. I'm sorry to do it like that, but there was no way I was going to get the entire thing written within the deadline. (I overreached. I am an overreacher.)
> 
> Thank you all for reading this far and, as always, you can find me on my [tumblr](http://polyamoryavengers.tumblr.com/) for Marvel headcanons and one-shots.


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